UvA, BA, Media and Information

The Bachelor’s in Media and Information is dedicated to the exploration of New Media and the pervasive production, distribution and use of information in today’s society. You will analyse specific new media phenomena, including social media platforms, as well as broader contemporary themes, such as surveillance, citizen journalism, locative media, and the monitoring and metrification of everyday life. The programme will give you advanced conceptual and practical tools to understand the seismic shifts in culture and society brought about by the constant transformation of media. What happens, for example, when mobile apps monitor our health and recommend music to us? How does our behaviour change when we can locate ourselves on a digital map and others are able to track our movements? Most of us own various devices that are designed to create, access, store and share information. But how does all this work? What is this information? How can we deal with it effectively? And what are the cultural consequences? As well as established concepts from media studies and information studies, the programme applies and develops new research approaches like Digital Humanities and Digital Methods. This interdisciplinary perspective is crucial to understanding contemporary developments like new political movements, Big Data and privacy, or the emerging sharing economy.