Last Tuesday (January 26), I participated in a debate on “Individu 2.0”. The debate was hosted by Christian student organizations to prepare for their Easter gathering where they will tackle religious and societal issues. As an outsider/expert I was asked to share my thoughts on the mediatization of everyday life, together with Jan van der Stoep (affiliated with the Christelijke Hogeschool Ede). It was an insightful debate. Jan and I agreed on many counts which made the debate a little bit less spectacular, but for me it was good to have some outsider conformation on some deep felt thoughts and opinions on new media.

What I did not expect was that the debate would spark the interest of two attending journalists of the two leading Dutch Christian newspapers. At the end of the debate the students asked about my views on (Dutch) politics and new media, as well as the rise of the Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders. In a nutshell, I think social networks (Youtube, Facebook, Hyves, Twitter etc), could be a valuable (additional!) avenue to discuss politics and to voice one’s concerns about the deep seated fear (and sometimes hatred) towards “others” (i.e. non-native Dutch citizens). I might be hopelessly naive here, but I think engaging in a debate in this particular case (through movies, pictures, blogs, etc), and taking the concerns of those-who-fear very seriously (instead of trivializing the Wilders supports’ genuinely felt fear-of-others) could be one way out of a xenophobic, divided political future. There’s way more to this issue, and my argument is much more nuanced, but this is one of the points I made during the debate.

The debate’s media fallout was illustrative and focused on my views on social networks and politics and used my quotes in their headlines. The best article ended up in the newspaper (first link). The two other articles surfaced immediately after the debates on the newspapers’s websites.

- ‘Gebruikers netwerksites zijn machthebbers’. Nederlands Dagblad. January 28, 2010, page 6.
- „Twitter en Facebook zijn machtige wapens”. Reformatorisch Dagblad. January 27, 2010.
- ‘Netwerksites gaan Wilders stemmen kosten’. Nederlands Dagblad. January 27, 2010.

Last week’s Media van Morgen symposium, organized by two Utrecht University MA students, turned out to be a huge success. There was even a waiting list, but, luckily the event has been recorded by LectureNet.

You can access all talks here, video and slides are included. And here’s the direct link to my talk “Mediawetenschappers en de Media van Morgen“.

In my talk I argue that journalists, politicians, consultants, entrepreneurs, and fans dominate the debate (and discourse) on (new) media (i.e. its meaning, effects, future etc). Instead, students and scholars should have a much bigger stake in many such discussions (for example on media literacy, Second Life, social politics, games, etc, etc). Given the radical decentralization of the means of cultural production and the decline in professional journalism, there is a huge opportunity for media scholars to get their hands dirty by engaging in debates in traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio), as well as setting up their own platforms for discussion and dissemination of thoughtful analysis. I think that today’s (new) media students can (and should) be tomorrow’s experts.

*Update* (30/01) – Here’s a good summary of my talk (and the others) at MindNote.nl: “Symposium Media van Morgen (deel 1)“.

Yesterday I went to Doetinchem to give a talk at Reed Business on social politics (the ins & outs of the Obama 08 campaign). Had a great time there and got lots of positive feedback.

This month I will take part in the following events:

- January 21. “Mediawetenschappers en de Media van Morgen“. I will do a TED-like talk sharing my thoughts on the media scholar of the future for an event organized by Universiteit Utrecht’s MA (media) students. The symposium is called “Media van Morgen” and has a couple of interesting speakers (many of my fellow UU alumni).

- January 26. “Debat Individu 2.0“. For a debate on the mediatization of everyday life I will participate in a roundtable discussion in the Tituskapel (Amsterdam).

- January 28. “Yes we can? Nieuwe media gebruik in “the age of Obama”. After two successful masterclasses (hosted by KREM), we will do a third masterclass on social politics in The Hague. There are still seats available! There’s more information at KREM’s website.

Does game journalism exist? (My answer: Yes!). And if so, what should it look and feel like? Last Wednesday Dutch game journalists gathered to discuss the ins and outs of contemporary game criticism. I opened the evening with a presentation (titled: “Mijn naam is David en ik ben gamejournalist”), followed by a roundtable discussion. For those who did not attend, there is/was a liveblog (which is still accesible) and there is still a lively discussion going on at Bashers.

Update (14/12): another review of the debate (with pics) at G4M3.nl.
Update (18/12): Gezocht: ondernemende gamejournalisten, m/v. Further reflections on Bashers.nl
Update (18/12): Special Podcast: opname van het gamejournalistiekdebat. Audiofeed.
Update (18/12): Xi/Bashers-debat – 9 december 2009 @ CREA. Some notes on Mindnote.nl.

Today I did a talk on social politics at the Landelijk Psychologie Symposium in Utrecht. Because of that I was invited to do a short radio interview for Radio 1′s BNN Today. If you’re interested, there’s a download link at their website.

It has been a bit quiet here the last month. I spend most of my days in Minneapolis (MN) to work on the second chapter of my PhD. I will continue to work on chapter 3 the coming weeks/months. So you know, my PhD is slated for six chapters and is due September 2010.

I also finished a chapter for a Dutch book on the game industry, tentatively titled “Game journalistiek in Nederland”. The book – titled “Professionals’ Playground” – will probably be published Q1 2010. But, more on that later.

Last weeks has been all about the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Partly because of my work on games & the military-entertainment complex I did some interviews in national media; did a Radio 1 interview and my 90 seconds of fame by appearing in Het Journaal op 3. There was an ongoing debate on the coverage of the Modern Warfare 2 launch on Bashers (here and here).

Did some unannounced talks as well, one talk October 31 on Social Media & Politics for the Amsterdam branch of the Dutch Socialists, and one talk November 4 on the same topic for a student project called “Het Mes in de Democratie”. The last days of November I will do three previously announced lectures. See the post below.

That’s all the news for now. If you want to know what Im doing on a day-to-day basis, just follow my twitter stream (@gamespacenl). Yes, I should integrate it here somewhere, maybe I’ll do that in the downtime around Christmas.

And for those of you in the US, happy Thanksgiving this Thursday!

Good day to you from beautiful Minneapolis! The coming months (October and November) will be busy in terms of presentations, lectures and talk. All of them will be in The Netherlands. This is an additional set of talks I will be doing, the complete list is here. There might be one or two more but they are not confirmed yet. I’ll update the list with links and titles the coming weeks. Most of these talks are public, so if you want more information, drop me an email!

- 2009. (Oktober 23, 24). “Workshop Game Journalistiek”. (Working title). GameXperience 2009. Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum.

- 2009. (November 4). “Follow the money: New Media and Politics”. (Working title). Talk at: Het mes in de democratie, Studium Generale, Hogeschool van Utrecht.

- 2009. (November 27). “The Cultural Games Industry” (Working title). Paper to be presented at: Participating in a mediated world. Platform for Communication, Media, and Information (CMI) within the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Amsterdam.

- 2009. (November 30). “Nieuwe Media: An Introduction” (Working title). Lecture for the course Mediageschiedenis.

My talk on New Media & Politics – “Obama’s campagne. Tussen hoop en hype” – for Studium Generale Universiteit Utrecht (SGUU) was a big success! The room (or lecture hall) was packed with about 100 people attending and 140 people tuned into the live stream. As I said, I was very honored to open such a promising lineup. The questions from the audience were very good and provided me with a lot of food for thought.

But even better, you can watch the entire talk online (with slides!), including the Q&A session, here. You have to have Silverlight installed (with is a OS independent plug-in). If you look on Twitter (using the #sguu tag) you can see some commentary there as well.

Something completely different; I wrote a short bit on America’s Army for the STT newsletter. Download the article’s pdf here. STT (De Stichting Toekomstbeeld der Techniek) is a non-profit think tank where Jacco van Uden is working on a white paper on serious gaming, hence my article on America’s Army. If you have not met him and you are working in the field of serious gaming you might want to contact him, he is working on some great stuff!

Tomorrow at 11.30 (am) Tanja Sihvonen and I will do our presentation on game journalism at DiGRA09 (Digital Games Research Association). Paper is titled: “The New Gatekeepers? On the occopational ideology of game journalists”. You can download the paper here. If you’re at DiGRA, do come by! If you have any questions about the paper, you know where to find me.

A reminder and some more information about my upcoming lecture for Universiteit Utrecht’s Studium Generale. That is, September 7 – 20:00 – 21:30 Aula van het Academiegebouw – Universiteit Utrecht (admission is free of course).

The presentation will be on Obama’s successful presidential campaign. I will talk about the current debate on healthcare a bit as well but mostly discuss the use of social media (Facebook, email, Youtube etc) for political communication.

My talk will be the very first in this year’s Studium Generale series, which is kinda flattering. I very much look forward to it. There is plenty of information about the lecture series, called “Plug in – De belofte van de netwerkmaatschappij, van Obama tot Overvecht”. I added some more background information, so if you’re interested in this topic, take a look at their website. My presentation is titled: “Nieuwe media & politiek – Obama’s campagne. Tussen hoop en hype”. The lecture will be broadcasted online (live!) and will be recorded as well.

Studium Generale is meant to disseminate academic knowledge to a broader audience, so I’ll do my best to provide an accessible talk, not so much on strategies and specifics but more on the broader picture. If you are interested in a more business oriented analysis of the Obama08 campaign, take a look at the KREM Social Politics Workshop (8 september), but more on that later.