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textaural.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in New Media Histories at UvA. Index curator of Keywords for Studying Media, Culture & Information. https://textaural.com/keywords/. I study musty old encyclopedias, utopian computation, design and consensus politics, often all at once.
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I had the pleasure of attending a fantastic symposium by our MA students on Friday about Vibes. And it got me thinking about the connections between vibes (or atmospheres) and our other focus on infrastructures and platforms. Just jotted down some preliminary ideas about it.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Nice work here! I really like seeing more of these kinds of histories that highlight the heterogeneous nature of platform users adapting a technical capacity for their own practices -- something I attempted myself: doi.org/10.1080/2470...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Made a small edit to @timothysnyder.bsky.social's _On Tyranny_.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I have amazing (and prolific) colleagues at UvA's New Media and Digital Culture program and I wanted to get a better sense of what they have been doing since 2024. So I collected all of their work in one handy spot. I will try to keep it up to date 2-3 times a year. textaural.com/uva_NMDC/

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Super pleased with student's responses this week to our Histories of Digital Cultures - Doing History Playlist w/ featured work by @valeriesch.bsky.social @textfiles.com @loriemerson.net @adamegriff.bsky.social @ktmac.bsky.social @katecrawford.bsky.social and others. textaural.com/uva_HDC/play...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

My grandfather was a nuclear engineer at Los Alamos in the late 40s. They would do nuclear tests in the desert, and watch them from a "safe" distance of a few miles. They would shield their eyes by burying their heads in the crooks of their arms. He said he could see his bones with his eyes shut.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

one rule of internet discourse: every time cobol is back in the news, i am required to share this brilliant piece from @histoftech.bsky.social logicmag.io/care/built-t...

submitted 34 days ago • 3 comments

Finalizing our syllabus for "Histories of Digital Culture" (it includes discussing work of @kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy @loriemerson.net @ktmac.bsky.social @katecrawford.bsky.social, @gabrielebalbi.bsky.social). I'm making a music playlist for the students, and would love some suggestions!

submitted 36 days ago • 6 comments

Does anyone know who owns the copyright of the portrait that is to be removed from the Colorado State Capitol? Is it public domain?

submitted 38 days ago • 1 comment

Just updated the Keywords for MCI Index with entries on the Internet, Business & Monetization, and Extractivism. textaural.com/keywords/

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

I happened upon Ubuweb in the late 90s, as I finished college. Sometimes, years went by when I forgot it was there, and then I'd remember + celebrate its existence. In this age of anti-intellectualism + censorship, of transactional relationships + extraction + joylessness, I say: 🙌 💫🌈 Ubu.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

@clivethompson.bsky.social fyi

submitted 43 days ago • 2 comments

No one blogs anymore (maybe it's all podcasts now–still). But I am quite inspired by Alex Galloway's blog where he published excerpts from his book. Such a nice form of academic communication that increases access but not at the expense of doing more work cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/one...

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

Just two more days until the deadline to submit to our CFP on Utopian Media Studies! textaural.com/utopianmedia.... We can't wait to read your hopeful abstracts about where we can take media studies next. 500 words due March 1.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

Always bibliographize. "If you seek knowledge without responsibility, please skip past the [bibliography] that follows." Taraneh Fazeli and Cannach MacBride in "As for Protocols" www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments

A new article I coauthored with @darthvetter.bsky.social is out today in AI and Society, "An Endangered Species: How LLMs threaten Wikipedia's sustainability" #wikipedia #wikiresearch link.springer.com/article/10.1...

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

Lots of new stuff!

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

I have a few new MA students writing about digital advertising, aesthetics, subcultures, and AI. So I thought it was time to update my keywords index to aid their research with concepts from "Designing in Dark Times" and "Digital Roots." Some really nice work in both books. textaural.com/keywords/

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

CFP Reminder Convergence Special Issue Utopian Media Studies: Research for collective forms of becoming otherwise New media scholars do not just diagnose current issues around media (🤖) they also provide strategies for hope (✨). 📝 500 word abstracts 1 March 2025 textaural.com/utopianmediastudies/

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

If you are studying #misinformation #factchecking and asking broader questions about our information ecosystem, you should be reading Heather Ford's "Writing the Revolution" (2022). It has a fantastic theory of the fact. I reviewed it for Information & Culture. muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/artic...

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social Can you hear me now? commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ca...

submitted 88 days ago • 0 comments