Call for Applications: International MAs in New Media at the University
of Amsterdam.
International M.A. in New Media at the University of Amsterdam
Call for Applications for Fall 2014, rolling admissions open on
December 15, 2013 and close on 1 April 2014
One-year and two-year New Media M.A. Programs available. For the
two-year "Research Master's Program: New Media Specialisation," see below.
### International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (one-year program) ###
/// Overview
The MA Program in media studies New Media and Digital Culture offers a
comprehensive and critical approach to new media research and theory. It
builds upon the pioneering new media scene that Amsterdam is known for,
with an emphasis on the study of Internet culture. Students gain an
in-depth knowledge in new media theory, including perspectives such as
software studies, political economy, and other critical traditions, and
applied to such topics as social media, data cultures, and locative
devices. They engage with the emerging area of digital methods, an
ensemble of Internet research approaches and techniques that are
specific to the new media and the study of natively digital objects.
Additionally, students can choose to train in the areas of issue
mapping, information visualization, digital writing and publishing, or
social media research. The MA program combines a variety of teaching
formats, ranging from lectures and group projects to lab sessions.
Interested students are also supported in undertaking research
internships. Students produce a wide portfolio of work, including
theoretically engaged essays, empirical research projects, new media
experiments, blog and wiki entries, in addition to organizing symposia.
The program thereby enables students to contribute to timely discourses
on digital culture, to conduct innovative research projects, and to
critically engage in new media practices. The International MA in New
Media and Digital Culture is an up-to-date digital humanities study program.
Students maintain a new media issues blog, recognized as among the
leading academic blogs on the subject of digital culture, where they
critique and discuss books, events, and new media objects. Students also
get involved in a lively new media culture, both at the university,
where internationally renowned speakers present their work and
collaborative research projects are developed, and beyond. Cultural
institutions, such as the Waag Society, the de Balie Center for Culture
and Politics, and Mediamatic regularly host inspiring events. The
Institute of Network Cultures, initiators of such events as UnlikeUs,
Society of the Query, MyCreativity, and Video Vortex, regularly
collaborates with the program. Digital media practitioners, such as
Appsterdam, various Fablabs, and hacker festivals regularly open their
doors to interested audiences. Finally, students are also encouraged to
participate in PICNIC, the creative industries festival.
/// Curriculum
The New Media and Digital Culture program is a one year MA (60 EC) that
begins in early September and ends with a festive graduation ceremony at
the end of August. It is divided into two semesters:
First Semester (September - January)
Students follow a course in New Media Research Practices, which
addresses doing research in and with new media. It engages with recent
methodological debates around big data, realtime research, and software
analysis. As part of the course, students conduct experimental new media
projects, run a wiki, https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/MoM/, and the
Masters of Media site, http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl, regarded as a
top blog for new media research and nominated for a Dutch award for best
educational blog.
Concurrently, the New Media Theories class introduces students to major
theoretical frameworks in new media studies, including cybernetics,
software studies, digital labor theories, network criticism, media
ecology, and cognitive/communicative capitalism. An important aspect
involves reading influential texts on media forms and digital networked
technologies, addressing key thinkers such as Marshall McLuhan, Norbert
Wiener, Vilem Flusser, Friedrich Kittler, Alexander R. Galloway, N.
Katherine Hayles, Matthew Fuller, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Jodi Dean.
Through a variety of individual and group assignments, including a
symposium presentation, students gather the relevant skills and
resources for writing a critical research paper that concludes the course.
The final first semester class, New Media Research Methods, taught by
the program Chair, Richard Rogers, trains students in digital methods
research, a set of novel techniques and a methodological outlook and
mindset for social and cultural research with the web. (see
http://www.digitalmethods.net) Students use “natively” digital methods
to investigate state Internet censorship, search engine rankings,
website histories, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, and other web platforms
by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data through various
analytical techniques.
New Media Research Practices (6 EC), week 1-8
New Media Theories (12 EC), week 1-16
New Media Research Methods (12 EC), week 9-20
Second Semester (February-June)
In the second semester, students have the opportunity to further
specialize by choosing between theme seminars on issue mapping for
politics, information visualization, social media and value, the digital
book, new media literary forms, and other courses offered outside of new
media. Issue Mapping for Politics is concerned with mapping online
discourse, and is a member of the international network of mapping
courses following, amongst others, Bruno Latour's methods. The finest
student work is entered into the annual controversy mapping award in
Toulouse. New Media Project: Information Visualisation is a joint
theoretical-practical collaboration between designers, programmers, and
analysts, where the product, showcased in the annual 'show me the data'
event (http://showmethedata.nl), is an online tool, digital
visualization or interactive graphic. The Value of the Social - Studying
Social Media is a theoretical/empirical module which addresses the
valorisation of social life in digital media, including concerns around
data mining, platform politics, the numerification of affect, and
digital economies. The Digital Book investigates how the concept of the
‘book’ is translated into new media forms that coincide with
transformations in the contemporary publishing industry. The subject
contains both theoretical and practical components. New Media Literary
Forms explores new forms of writing for and in digital media and
practically engages with the production of creative, interactive, or
collaborative texts.
The program of study concludes with the MA thesis, an original analysis
that makes a contribution to the field, undertaken with the close
mentorship of a faculty supervisor. The graduation ceremony includes an
international symposium with renowned speakers.
Elective (12 EC), week 1-16
MA Thesis (18 EC), week 1-20
/// Career perspectives
Graduates in New Media and Digital Culture will have gained the critical
faculties, skills, and outlook that will enable them to pursue a career
in research as well as in the public and private sectors, ranging from
NGOs, government, and cultural institutions to online marketing and the
growing field of creative industries. Various alumni have also started
their own successful new media businesses. As the exposure to the
Internet and related technologies continues to grow, new media
researchers are in demand in a variety of sectors. With digital
technologies becoming the preferred platforms for business, information
exchange, cultural expression, and political struggle, research skills
focusing on these complex and dynamic environments are becoming central
to working in these fields. In addition, advanced students can pursue
academic careers in research and teaching.
/// Student Life
The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of
international capitals. UvA's competitive tuition and the ubiquity of
spoken English both on and off-campus make the program especially
accommodating for foreign students. The city's many venues, festivals,
and other events provide remarkably rich cultural offerings and displays
of technological innovation (see
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/MoM/NewMediaAmsterdam). The program has
many ties to cultural institutions and companies active in the new media
sector, where internship opportunities and collaborations may be
available, in consultation with the student's thesis supervisor.
Students attend and blog, tweet or otherwise capture local new media
events and festivals, while commenting as well on larger international
issues and trends pertaining to new media. The quality of student life
is equally to be found in the university's lively and varied
intellectual climate. New Media and Digital Culture students come from
North and South America, Africa, Asia, and across Europe; they draw from
academic and professional backgrounds including journalism, art and
design, engineering, the humanities, and the social sciences.
/// Application and Deadlines
Rolling admissions from December 15, 2013 to April 1, 2014 for Fall 2014
admission.
More Info & Questions
- International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture - University of
Amsterdam -
http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/new-media-and-digital-culture.html
for admission details, including fees.
- Student information website - http://student.uva.nl/mnm/
- Graduate School for Humanities, General Information - http://gsh.uva.nl
- Further general questions? Please write to UvA's Graduate School of
the Humanities, graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl.
- Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to
Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, New Media Program Coordinator, University of
Amsterdam, c.gerlitz[at]uva.nl
### Research Master's in Media Studies, New Media Specialization
(two-year program) ###
/// Overview
The New Media Research Master is a specialization within the Media
Studies Research Master's Degree Program, and focuses on the
theoretical, artistic, practical and methodological study of digital
culture. The New Media Research Master has two 'routes,' the theoretical
aesthetic and the practical empirical ones. In the theoretical aesthetic
route, students focus on contemporary media theory, with a concentration
on critical media art, including areas that have been pioneered in
Amsterdam (tactical media, distributed aesthetics). The other route is
the practical empirical, which is the other specialty of new media
research in Amsterdam: digital methods and information visualization.
Students also may combine coursework from each of the two routes,
putting together a course package that treats aesthetics and
visualization, on the one hand, or media art and digital methods, on the
other.
As a crucial component of the Amsterdam New Media Research Program, the
New Media Research Master encourages fieldwork and lab work, which
result in a 'new media project' and also provide materials for the
thesis. In undertaking fieldwork, students are given the opportunity to
spend a period abroad for structured data collection and study, doing
either a 'research internship' or an independent project, supervised by
a staff member. For example, in the past students have studied ICTs for
development in Africa, and electronics factories in China. The lab work,
which fits well with the practical-empirical route, would result in a
research project that combines web data collection, tool use and
development as well as visualisation. It often addresses a contemporary
issue, such as Wikileaks Cablegate, and brings together a group of
researchers in a data sprint, hackathon or barcamp, intensively working
to output new info-graphics, blog postings and research reports on the
state of art of the subject.
Outstanding New Media research master graduates are expected to compete
favorably for PhD positions nationally and internationally, and have
skill sets enabling new media research in scholarly and professional
settings.
The New Media Research Master Specialization has as its target 15
students annually.
/// Curriculum
- Year one
1st Semester: students follow courses in new media research practices
and digital methods, which provides in-depth training in Internet
critique and empirical analysis of the web. The research practices
course is an introduction to and overall resource crash course on
searching & collecting, social media data, journals in the field,
blogging, the Amsterdam Scene, new media events, academic writing,
(data) collections, data tools, data visualisation, new media methods,
key works, collaboration & coordination. Concurrently students take new
media theories, a course that introduces students to some of the major
theoretical traditions in new media, including perspectives such as
software studies, political economy, and other critical traditions, and
applied to such topics as social media, data cultures, and locative
devices. (For more details on these courses, see the one-year MA
description above.)
2nd Semester: the student follows media & politics, which places both
historically crucial and contemporary political manifestos in relation
to media analyses, encouraging a consideration of concepts such as
labour, spectacle, the machine, identity and affect. Students also have
an elective, and may choose between theme seminars on issue mapping for
politics, information visualization, social media and value, the digital
book, new media literary forms and other courses offered in the research
master's. (For more details on theme seminars, see the one-year MA
description above.)
- Year two
1st Semester: students may pursue a "research internship" or a study
abroad program with partner universities. They may undertake fieldwork
for a research project, or join a digital methods lab project. Students
also may follow an elective course, taken from the broader Media Studies
offerings.
2nd Semester: students follow an elective course, where again the choice
is between theme seminars on issue mapping for politics, information
visualization, social media and value, the digital book, new media
literary forms and others. Students also write the thesis, which is
expected to be original and make a contribution to a discourse in the
field. The research master's degree program concludes with a
presentation and defense of the thesis.
/// Application and Deadlines
Rolling admissions from December 15, 2013 to April 1, 2014 for Fall 2014
admission.
More Info & Questions
- International Research M.A. in Media Studies - University of Amsterdam
-
http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/media-studies-research.html
for details, including fees. When applying, indicate that your
application is for the "New Media Specialization."
- Student information website - http://student.uva.nl/mmic/
- Graduate School for Humanities, General Information - http://gsh.uva.nl
- Further general questions? Please write to UvA's Graduate School of
the Humanities, graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl.
- Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to
Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, New Media Program Coordinator, University of
Amsterdam, c.gerlitz[at]uva.nl
### New Media M.A. Faculty - University of Amsterdam ###
Richard Rogers, Professor and Chair. Web epistemology, digital methods.
Publications include Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press,
2004/2005), awarded American Society for Information Science and
Technology's 2005 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award, and
Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013). Founding director of govcom.org
anddigitalmethods.net.
Bernhard Rieder, Associate Professor. Digital Methods, software theory
and politics. Current research interests include search engine politics
and the mechanization of knowledge production.
http://thepoliticsofsystems.net
Jan Simons, Associate Professor. Mobile Culture, gaming, film theory.
Publications include Playing The Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema
(AUP, 2007). Project Director, Mobile Learning Game Kit, Senior Member,
Digital Games research group. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.a.simons/
Carolin Gerlitz, Assistant Professor. Digital research,
software/platform studies, social media, economic sociology, topology,
numeracy and issue mapping online.http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/
Niels van Doorn. Assistant Professor. Materialization of gender,
sexuality, and embodiment in digital spaces.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/n.a.j.m.vandoorn/
Thomas Poell. Assistant Professor. Social media and the transformation
of activist communication in different parts of the world.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.poell/
Yuri Engelhardt, Assistant Professor. Computer modeling and information
visualization. Publications include The Language of Graphics (2002);
founder and moderator of InfoDesign (1995-9); co-developer of Future
Planet Studies at UvA. http://www.yuriweb.com
Erik Borra, Lecturer. Data science, digital methods, issue mapping
online. Digital methods lead developer.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.k.borra/
Esther Weltevrede, Lecturer. Controversy mapping with the Web,
temporalities and dynamics online, device studies.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.j.t.weltevrede/
Mark Tuters, Lecturer. New media literary forms, avant-garde media
history, locative media.
Michael Dieter, Lecturer. Media art and materialist philosophy. Critical
uses of digital and networked technologies such as locative media,
information visualization, gaming and software modification.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.j.dieter/
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