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
Date September 2012 / Category News
Recently I have been appointed research fellow at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. During the coming year I will participate in a research project that deals with the controversial issue of 'artistic research'. The fellowship is part of a prestigious PEEK grant awarded to Austrian media artist and curator Matthias Tarasiewicz by the Austrian Science Fund. I was awarded a so-called PEEK-Visit, a research fellowship for a visiting professor limited to six month spread over a period of two years.
Tags research
The German Research Foundation network Media of Collective Intelligence invited Philippe Aigrain to present his view on reforming copyright.
Three panelists, Christiane Heibach, Sebastian Haunss and Mirko Tobias Schäfer, were then asked to respond to Aigrains theses. Here is my statement on Aigrain's book Sharing.
Tags copyright File-Sharing Review
Date April 2012 / Category News
An institutionalised pledge in order to prevent academic fraud is useless when the entire institution is undermined by policy makers, crippled through bureaucracy and damaged by unacademic leaders. Such a pledge is as valuable as a hasty vow in a Las Vegas drive-through wedding chapel. Restoring academia's autonomy and fostering traditional academic values, however, might be a good start.
Date January 2012 / Category News
On July 1 2011, the distinguished professor for history Maarten Prak resigned from his position as director of the Research Institute for History and Culture at Utrecht University. He invited ten young scholars to speak at his farewell symposium on the future agendas of the humanities.
Date August 2011 / Category News
Social media platforms have inappropriately been celebrated as enabling technologies that promote passive consumers to active producers of media content. However, this enthusiasm neglects that most social media platforms are designed for commercial means and that almost any aspect of their graphic user interface, application software design and terms of use is rendered to serve efficiently exactly these ends.
University managers create a virtual university for themselves, a sort Sim City academia. Columnist Mirko Schäfer calls it Sim Sity as in SIMplified univerSITY. He pleads for rogue scholars, who come up with solutions for problems without bothering at all the encrusted superstructure of administrators.
Tags Opinion
The who is who of the German online world gathers for an annual reunion at re:publica. Since 2007 this convention provides a forum not only to meet face to face, but especially to discuss a broad range of issues concerning internet culture and its implementation into broader society.
Tags conference Review
Date March 2012 / Category News
Many scholars struggle with the latest budget cuts and the autocratic management that has removed students and teaching staff from participating in decision making processes. If we would actively get involved by investing into our university, we might regain some influence.
Tags academia crowdfunding Opinion
Date December 2011 / Category News
The latest report of the United Nation's special rapporteur Frank La Rue clearly condemns Internet censorship. The report strongly emphasises the right of all citizens to freedom of opinion and expression.