[Air-L] Call for Applications: International M.A. in New Media ­at the University of Amsterdam

[Anne Helmond]

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<http://www.uva.nl/en/education/master-s/master-s-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/