[ICTs-and-Society] New Media M.A., University of Amsterdam, 2013 Fall Admissions

[Thomas Poell]

International M.A. in New Media ­at the University of Amsterdam

Call for Applications for­ Fall 2013, rolling admissions open on 1
November 2012 and close on 1 April 2013
http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2012/11/01/call-fall-2013/

One-year and two-year New Media M.A. Programs available. For the
two-year "Research Master's Program: New Media Track," see below.


New Media M.A. One-year Program

The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the
University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2013-2014
academic year. Applications open on 1 November 2012 and close on 1
April 2013. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in
English at the UvA in the heart of Amsterdam. Students become actively
engaged in critical Internet culture, with an emphasis on new media
theory and aesthetics, including theoretical materialist traditions,
practical information visualization trends and web data using digital
methods. The overall focus of the MA is on training the students as
new media researchers. Our permanent faculty are recognized experts in
their fields, who are committed to their students. The program admits
approximately fifty students per year, classes are no larger than 20,
and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:5.

Curriculum

1st Semester: students follow a course in new media research practices
and academic blogging, led by critical Internet theorist and tactical
media practitioner Geert Lovink. Their entries form the
internationally noted 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. The concurrent new media theories course focuses on contemporary
thought around such subject matters as protocol, apparatus theory,
media ecologies, informational economies, blogging, hacking,
comparative media studies and wild card theory. The final first
semester class, Digital Methods, given by the program Chair, Richard
Rogers, trains students in novel techniques for Internet research,
http://www.digitalmethods.net/.

2nd Semester: the student chooses between theme seminars on digital
sexualities, new media politics, information visualization, ubiquitous
computing and others offered outside of new media. The digital
sexualities course is theoretically inclined in the traditions of
virtual ethnography. The new media politics class is concerned with
issue mapping, and is a member of the international network of mapping
courses following Bruno Latour's methods. The finest student work is
entered into the annual controversy mapping award in Toulouse.
Information visualization is a joint theoretical-practical
collaboration between designers, programmers and analysts, where the
product is an online tool, digital visualization or interactive
graphic. Ubiquitous computing follows the disappearance of the
computer, and the computerisation of everyday life, but in actuality
is a gadget studies course, exploring the scholarship on mobile urban
lifestyles and locative media. The program of study concludes with the
M.A. 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.

Graduates of the NMMA have gained an analytical and practical
skill-set that enables diverse careers in research and
practice-related areas that make use of the Internet, including
business, government, NGOs, and creative industries that are evolving
with emerging new media. Our graduates include Lotte Meijer, winner of
a Webby award, and Eva Kol, whose MA thesis, Hyves, was published by
Kosmos in 2008 and sold over 5000 copies its first year in print.

Student Life

The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of
international capitals. UvA's competitive tuition (see below) 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. The program has ties to
organizations including PICNIC, the Waag Society, Institute for
Network Cultures, Virtual Platform, govcom.org, and other cultural
institutions, where internship opportunities and collaborations may be
available, in consultation with the student's thesis supervisor.
Students attend and blog, twitter 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. NMMA students come from North and South America,
Africa, Asia and across Europe and from academic and professional
backgrounds including journalism, art and design, engineering, the
humanities and social sciences. The International M.A. in New Media is
an up-to-date digital humanities program of study.

Application and Deadline

Rolling admissions from 1 November 2012 to 1 April 2013 for Fall 2013
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 details, including fees.

· Graduate School for Humanities, General Information - http://gsh.uva.nl/

· Further general questions? Please write to UvA's Graduate School of
the Humanities, email graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl.

· Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write
to Professor Richard Rogers, New Media Program Director, University of
Amsterdam, email rogers[at]uva.nl



International M.A. in New Media ­at the University of Amsterdam

Research Master's in Media Studies, New Media Track

Two-year program

The New Media Research Master is a specialised track 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 Track 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 cybernetics,
network theory, concepts of power/control, software studies,
participatory culture, surveillance studies, digital labour, locative
media and neo-materialism.

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 digital sexualities, new
media politics, information visualization, ubiquitous computing and
others in the research master's. (For more details on those courses,
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 digital sexualities, new media politics, information
visualization, ubiquitous computing 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 Deadline

Rolling admissions from 1 November 2012 to 1 April 2013 for Fall 2013
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 Track."

· Graduate School for Humanities, General Information - http://gsh.uva.nl/

· Further general questions?  Please write to UvA's Graduate School of
the Humanities, email graduateschoolhumanities-fgw atuva.nl.

· Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write
to Professor Richard Rogers, New Media Program Director, University of
Amsterdam, email rogers[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
and digitalmethods.net.

Geert Lovink, Associate Professor. Critical Internet theory, Tactical
Media. Publications include Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical
Internet Culture (Routledge, 2007) and Networks without a Cause: A
Critique of Social Media (Polity, 2012). Co-founder nettime list (1995
-­ present); founder, Institute of Network Cultures (2004 - present).
http://www.networkcultures.org/.

Jan Simons, Associate Professor. Mobile Culture, Gaming, Film Theory.
Publications include Playing The Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema
(U Amsterdam P, 2007). Project Director, Mobile Learning Game Kit,
Senior Member, Digital Games research group.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.a.simons/

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/

Bernhard Rieder, Assistant Professor. Software theory and politics.
Current research interests include search engine politics and the
mechanization of knowledge production. http://thepoliticsofsystems.net

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/

Almila Akdag, KNAW Royal Academy Fellow. Digital humanities.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.a.akdag/

Erik Borra, Lecturer. Data science. Digital methods lead developer.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.k.borra/

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/

Esther Weltevrede, Lecturer. Controversy mapping with the Web,
temporalities and dynamics online and device studies.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.j.t.weltevrede/