Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Mirko Tobias Schäfer / Assistant Professor
University of Utrecht Department for Media and Culture Studies
Featured Blog Entries
While the new materiality of digitized media content has radically challenged the music and film industry, the publishing industry seemed to feel comfortable neglecting the changing reality of the media business. But then major news papers blamed their decreasing revenues on freely accessible web content, and paint a dark picture of a future lacking proper journalism and diverse media, most ominously, the vanishing of printed papers and magazines. Time for a reality check: It appears that there is not only a demand for print but there are also smart publishers producing innovative print products.
From the outside it looks like an oversized camping tent, from the inside it is more like a space station. World in a Shell is a complete high-tech living environment that perfectly fits into a standard freight container.
More Blog Entries
Date April 2010 / Category News
Date April 2010 / Category News
Date January 2010 / Category News
Recommended
Date September 2010
Ars Technica has a read-worthy article on Thomas Edison's attacks on the young film industry. Similar to today's film, music and software industry patents and copyrights were used by Edison to regulate the market and to keep competitors out of it.
Date August 2010
In a somehow polemic inspection Chris Anderson and Micheal Wolff over at Wired write about the technological changes in web applications and how it affects media practice. They argue that the application becomes the primary access point to web services. Further more they see the general openness of the web to become marginalized. However, as O'reilly points out in a commentary, recent web applications show that the new business models thrive on the back-end and the exploitation of harvested data.
Date August 2010
Patent Absurdity is a movie on software patents. The documentary explores the history of software patents and shows how they constitute a threat to software development, innovation and economic growth.
Date July 2010
Evgeny Morozov has a very readable comment on Zuckerberg's naïve views on privacy. He critically reviews the fuzzy rhetoric on so-called social media.
Date July 2010
What appears as user generated content on YouTube, Myspace, FB etc. is screened by software and content reviewers. Via Slashdot, I stumbled upon this NYT article that gives a glance on the job of content reviewers for Web 2.0 applications. It provides a to often unconsidered notion of the Web 2.0 user generated content as subject to strict review processes and corporate editing.
Date July 2010
On the occasion of Clay Shirky's new book "Cognitive Surplus" on how to harvest collective production for a better world, Salon.com features a discussion between Shirky, Andrew Keen and James Mustich on the future of the book, mashing up issues of technological design with the usual legends from utopia to dystopia.
Date June 2010
Last year I served as external respondent for a section of the broad EU survey on The Social Impact of ICT. Now the final report is available as pdf-download. The document consists of reports on participation in policy making, education and life-long learning, work, consumption, health and innovation. The various reports do not only represent the current situation of ICT in the European Union in a meta-survey but also formulate advice for future policy making. It is part of the European Commission's Digital Competitiveness Report on the social and economic impact of ICT.
Date June 2010
The first international congress on Web Studies took place in March in Toluca, Mexico. Those who could not attend but are interested in the presented papers can now download the entire proceedings as well as audio recordings and presentation slides.
About
Mirko Tobias Schaefer is a researcher in the field of digital culture.
This website provides information on his research interests and teaching activities.
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Contact
Mirko Tobias Schaefer
Department for Media and Culture Studies
Utrecht University
Kromme Nieuwegr. 20
NL-3512 HH Utrecht