Archetypes in magazines

Even though we are researching in the digital space, and my main passion lies at the internet and digital media, I will always have a soft spot for magazines, Especially independent magazines. Next to my iPad, I always have a big pile of magazines waiting to be read. I read magazines offline as well as on my iPad. I must say, reading magazines on a digital device leaves something to be desired. For instance, you don't have the tactile feeling of knowing how far you are in a magazine. It doesn't have a nice way to flip the pages fast, just to get a feel of the magazine. That's why I will keep reading magazines in print. This led me to the Facing Pages festival in Arnhem this weekend. An intimate festival to celebrate independent magazines worldwide. Where else would you find magazines on Meatculture right next to a stencilled personal 'zine dedicated to DWDD's presenter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk? The festival revolves around three rooms: The lecture room, the exhibition and the lobby with magazine store. To start with the last. Amsterdam based Atheneum Bookstore runs the popup store with a great selection of magazines. I have found some great titles with outrageous designs. Some of the magazines have their digital counterpart, but to tell you the truth, they don't hold up to the real thing in your hands.

tagged with: archetype, magazine, festivals

A new year a new buzzword...

And we're back! On behalf of the whole research group we wish you an interesting, joyful and above all inquisitive 2012! Ofcourse a new year can't start without all sorts of trendlists, top 10's of great things that will happen on us in the coming year, and even lists of these lists. Fear not, we will not pile on these lists with our own predictions. There's enough of that already and as the late great Peter Drucker once said, the best way to predict the future is to create it.  So let's work on that the coming weeks and months! 

tagged with: buzzword, 2012, apps, tools

I'm less than 5 steps away from Kevin Bacon, now what?

This week, researchers at Facebook and the University of Milan published a study which concludes that the degrees of separation between any two people in the world is no longer the famous six degrees of separation. We are actually more connected than ever. The number has been reduced to 4.7. The study, which measured how many friends people have on Facebook, found that the notion of six degrees of separation had been shrinking over the past three years at the same time as the dominant social network bumped up its userbase. The study itself is unique in itself, the researchers used the actual Facebook data, 721 million active users and a staggering 69 billion friendships among them. This is the largest social network study ever released. 

tagged with: study, social network sites, facebook

Why can't we recognize the rabbit hole after 70 years?

At the start of my first college on Crossmedia Theory (year 1, period 1) I first delve into some of the older models of mass communication. Just to get some of the basics clear for my students and to make sure they know how to talk about communication in terms of Sender, Receiver and other terms. 

tagged with: rabbit hole, war of the worlds, transmedia, marika