We are proud to present the latest issue New Media Studies Magazine, a magazine created by students of our MA programma New Media & Digital Culture. This issue focuses entirely on the theme The Age of Play. Edited by Laura Coomans and Joeri Taelman, the issue compiles some of the best and most innovative research papers written during the MA courses…

We have another upcoming PhD dissertation defense to mention here: our colleague Nicolle Lamerichs will defend her thesis Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures at Maastricht University. Here’s the teaser text from the back cover of the dissertation: Loners, geeks, fanatics – fans have often been misunderstood and ridiculed in popular media. Productive Fandom…

We are proud to announce the upcoming PhD dissertation defense of our colleague Teresa De la Hera Conde-Pumpido. The title of her thesis is Persuasive Structures in Advergames: Conveying Advertising Messages Through Digital Games, and here’s a short summary: The evolution of the game industry and changes in the advertising landscape in recent years have led…

We are delighted to be able to announce that Utrecht University has started a Graduate Program in Game Research for selected (research) master students participating in one of the participating programs: Game and Media Technology  Media and Performance Studies Artificial Intelligence Computing Science  Business Informatics  Within this graduate program Game Research, excellent student can be offered a PhD position…

Together with our partner universities, we have received funding of 60,000 euro for an ERASMUS Intensive Programme ‘Identity and Interdisciplinarity in Games and Play Research’. Together with four other Dutch en thirteen foreign universities we will organize a short programme of study in the form of aSummer School in games and play research, in 2014 in…

On July 9 2014, our colleague Teun Dubbelman will defend his PhD dissertation, entitled Narratives of Being There: Computer Games, Presence and Fictional Worlds. Feel free to attend the ceremony! When: 9/7/2013 10.30 Where: Academiegebouw – Domplein 29, Utrecht The full dissertation can be found HERE, but here’s the abstract: Narrative game designer, or simply narrative designer, is a…

We are happy to announce that we received the official notification that our 1 Million € research project entitled Persuasive Gaming. From Theory-based Design to Validation and Back will be supported by NWO Topsector Creative Industries. Jeroen Jansz (Erasmus University), Ben Schouten (Eindhoven University of Technology), Joke Witteveen (xmediaworks) and Joost Raessens (Utrecht University) will start hiring…

From René Glas’ blog: After some delays, I am proud to announce that my book Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft is out now. About the book:   The massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft has become one of the most popular computer games of the past decade, introducing millions around the world…

Joost Raessens’ inaugural address Spelenderwijs. De ludische wending in de mediatheorie (“Homo Ludens 2.0 The Ludic Turn in Media Theory“) on the occasion of accepting the Chair of Media Theory at Utrecht University in November 2010 has now been published through open access in both a Dutch (here) and English version (here).

We are proud to announce that Douglas Rushkoff will defend his PhD dissertation on June 25. Below you can find the description of his thesis, titled Monopoly moneys: the media environment of corporatism and the player’s way out, from the Utrecht University website: By analysing corporatism through the lens of media ecology, Douglas Rushkoff shows how…