Easy to damage, hard to grow! 9 december: stakingsdag tegen de bezuinigingen in het hoger onderwijs en de wetenschap. Stop de afbraak. Kennis is geen kostenpost, maar de basis van onze toekomst. #AthenasAngels; @woinactie.bsky.social; @remcobreuker.bsky.social; vimeo.com/1109639682?f...

Stop the cuts in higher education! Stop de bezuinigingen in het hoger onderwijs!! Mooie opkomst en goede mars!! #doehetniet

"Districts and departments often buy systems on marketing promises rather than evidence. Few ask who validated the model or how it performs across racial groups," writes Nicholas E. Stewart in @techpolicypress.bsky.social.

Are you a Research Master or PhD student, and interested in cities, media, arts and performance? Check out our #urbaninterfaces seminar 'The Risky City' in late Spring 2026 at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social & RMeS Research School for Media Studies www.rmes.nl/ui-seminar-2...

Interesting collection of shorter essays and commentaries from a wide geographic range on digital authoritarianism in situated (smart/urban) contexts.

Where is the scientific evidence? www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc....

Sterke opinie @rensbod.bsky.social @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social @remcobreuker.bsky.social over de sloop van het hoger onderwijs. 'Dit demissionair kabinet voert ingrijpende onderwijsbezuinigingen door, zonder benodigd mandaat.' www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Nederlandse overheid ongehoord naïef en gemakzuchtig #digitalsovereignty

Happy that our consortium of academic and societal partners received a major #NWO-KEM grant for working on #resilientcities through Key Enabling Methods. The consortium is lead by Mascha van der Voort (University of Twente). www.nwo.nl/en/news/one-...

Saxony plans to use drones to film inside moving cars. The aim is to catch people using their cell phones while driving. Police will also use behavioral scanners, Palantir data analysis, live facial recognition, facial search engines, and government-deployed malware.

Shocked and surprised. Did not see that coming. 🥸

The contracts usually prevent the council/PD/HOA/retailer from physically interacting *in any way* with these camera installations. The Evanston, IL case is just one example that illustrates just how untrustworthy #Flock is as a vendor and why we should avoid/cancel contracts with them.

💡 New publication alert! “On the Controversiality of AI: The Controversy Is Not the Situation” by @noortjem.bsky.social , @ckatzenbach.bsky.social , @anderskristianm.bsky.social, and @annajobin.bsky.social is out now. 📖 Read it open access here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The unity around “sovereignty” in Europe masks a deeper question that inevitably follows and underpins the current broad agreement: sovereignty for what purpose, and in service of whose political project? asks @openfuture.bsky.social’s Zuzanna Warso.

De politiek achter de AI-bubbel, en wat het voor ons betekent www.doorbraak.eu/de-politiek-... “De hele AI-hype is een hallucinatie gebleken, en binnenkort gaan er miljarden dollars verdampen als ook de markt zich dat realiseert.

Great to see this CfP "The Synthetic City" #urbanAI for @mediapolis.bsky.social w/ guest editors @scott-rodgers.bsky.social @marcospdias.bsky.social & colleagues. mediacitytwg.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/c... Abstract deadline 30 November 2025.

Join us next week on Wed 8 October 20:00-20:45 CEST for the Master's Open Day @uumediaculture.bsky.social if you are interesting in our international Master program about #digitalmedia #digitalculture #digitalfutures www.uu.nl/en/masters/n... Register here: www.uu.nl/en/masters/g...

Dutch Tax Administration and Customs completely switch to Microsoft Cloud. Motivation letter full of 'efficiency' and 'productivity' rhetoric but not a word about national or EU data/platform sovereignty.

Interesting Call: Special Issue on "Data Centre Urbanism" eura.org/news-urp-25c... Deadline for Abstract submission: November, 30 2025 #CfP #datacenters

Interesting ethnographic exploration of the materiality and situatedness of the Internet, rugged data bunkers for ethereal ‘cloud’ storage, data loss as cultural fear, and eternal data selves, by @aretaylor.bsky.social theconversation.com/underground-...

The book is out! “Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values” @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social #governingthesigitalsociety www.uu.nl/en/events/bo...

At the #AIindeStad conference in Breda. (Re)thinking the relation between Ai and urban life. Main question for me today: how can #urbanAI be made more civic? indestad.ai

sharing our new article on the role of regulation for #AI therapist chatbots. with @jasonetucker.bsky.social and @petterericson.bsky.social AI Policy Lab @Umeå University #ResponsibleAI #AIgovernance

Interesting that 50% of respondents are "more concerned than exited", and only 10% univocally "more exited than concerned". Based on how "AI" is featured in many media you'd think it would be the inverse.

In Gaza vechten gewonde of ernstig zieke kinderen voor hun leven. Zij wachten soms weken zonder geholpen te worden. Wij kunnen dat in Nederland wél. Wij hebben de morele plicht om kinderen te helpen die nú zorg nodig hebben. Teken de petitie: groenlinkspvda.nl/petitie/ziek...

Call for Abstracts: 2026 CDCS Symposium “Good Vibes Only? How Affects and Emotions Are Mediated for Justice in Digital Culture” www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

We have a book chapter forthcoming in Dec 2025 - "External Intelligence: Oracles, Divination and Animism, and the Use of #LLMs /Generative #AI; Michael D. Fischer, Sally A. Applin, and Sridhar Ravula" in Symbolic Interaction and AI bookstore.emerald.com/symbolic-int... #GenAI

Elysium wasn’t supposed to be a blueprint.

In this short piece, I lean on embodied cog sci to argue that we should refuse & resist llms in education (pp. 53-58) unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentV... "the classroom is an environment where love, trust, empathy, care & humility are fostered & mutually cultivated through dialogical interactions"

One more time... If you are a parent of a young child and you have allowed them to interact with some kind of generative AI tool, I would love to chat with you!

Interested in #newmedia and #digitalculture? Join the online Master Open Day on Oct. 8 2025 @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social www.uu.nl/en/events/ma... [registration open soon!] Our session is at 20:00-20:45 CEST.

#CfP: Special Issue “Celebrating 60 Years of ELIZA? Critical Pasts and Futures of AI” of the Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society (WJDS), co-edited by @strippel.bsky.social & Magnus Rust. Submission deadline: November 17, 2025. More: www.weizenbaum-institut.de/news/detail/...

Happy to share that per 1 Sept 2025 I’m an Associate Professor in the Dep. of Media & Culture Studies @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social I look forward to continue working on the many intersections between digital media technologies and urban culture.

Have you completed an MA in literary studies? Interested in using your literary skills to research AI-generated stories? Like to work in a collaborative, innovative, friendly team? Apply for a fully funded 4-year PhD fellowship at @cdn-bergen.bsky.social at @unibergen.bsky.social in Norway!

"One in four academics also suffered moderate to severe anxiety, against a community backdrop of one in 13. Workloads played a direct role, with every excess hour increasing the risk of anxiety or depression by between 0.01 and 0.02 percentage points."

New from me @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social + Justin-Casimir Braun: Amsterdam believed that it could build a #predictiveAI for welfare fraud that would ALSO be fair, unbiased, & a positive case study for #ResponsibleAI. It didn't work. Our deep dive why: www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/11/1...

How can #urbanAI be conceptualized around #civic values? Attend our "Governing the Digital Society" expert meeting June 19 2025 @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social w/ @ernaruijer.bsky.social & Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen www.uu.nl/en/events/ci... Speakers: Esther Keymolen & @mtschaefer.bsky.social

Must read from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social

Interesting #PhD Course on #DigitalGeographies in fall 2025 in Sweden, organized by Natasha A. Webster & co www.uu.se/en/departmen...

Interested in #newmedia and #digitalculture? Come find us at the @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social Master Open Day on Feb. 7 2025. Sessions about our program New Media & Digital Culture 16:00 - 17:00 & 17:30-18:30. Location: Drift 25, Utrecht, room 102. Register here: www.uu.nl/en/node/1189...