Karin Van Es
Biographic Data
| ID | 245131 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karin Van Es |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karin |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Es |
| SIGNATURE | VAN ES K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5184-8640 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Livestream communities for AI-generated video content: Viewers’ motivations and perceptions of toxicity and moderation
AI is transforming live streaming with new communities forming around channels featuring automated or prompt-based AI-generated videos. By introducing AI as an active and sometimes unpredictable participant in community interactions, traditional creator-audience and audience-audience relations are disrupted, presenting challenges for toxicity and moderation. This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods survey of viewers ( ) to understand the…
NLZiet and NPO’s tiered VoD strategy: Balancing universal access and platform sovereignty
This article examines how the Dutch public broadcaster NPO has approached streaming through three video-on-demand (VoD) services: NPO Start, NPO Plus, and NLZiet. Rather than a fragmented strategy, NPO’s tiered approach responds to a “wicked” problem: fulfilling its public service remit while facing cord-cutting, budget cuts, intensifying market competition, and the rise of new gatekeepers. Focusing on NLZiet, a collaboration between NPO and two …
Beyond the streaming black box: Navigating the textures of access and data secrecy in media industries research
Global streaming services have reshaped the media landscape, through their business and distribution models, and their unprecedented collection of and control over data. This article examines how researchers navigate data secrecy and access in contemporary media industries research. Building on critiques of the transparency ideal and black box metaphor, we approach data access as an ongoing, textured, and relational process. Drawing on multi-site…
Exploring VoD Services through Data Donations: A View from Netflix
Researching video-on-demand (VoD) services is notoriously challenging as these platforms maintain tight and strategic control over consumption data. To address this barrier, this chapter explores data donations as an innovative method for accessing real-world viewing data, made possible by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. Under the GDPR, individuals can request their personal data from platforms like Netflix an…
Video-on-Demand Research: New Methods, Old Questions
Internet video-on-demand (VoD) services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and iPlayer have been with us for almost two decades. A tremendous amount of research has been produced, addressing diverse topics including VoD catalogs, content, interfaces, curation, users, and governance–but there has been surprisingly little reflection on the methods used to study VoD services. In such a context, how might we speak of methodological innovation in VoD resea…
Relational dynamics at the intersection of technology and higher education: Perspectives on GenAI use among humanities master’s students
The rapid uptake of generative AI (GenAI) tools in academic contexts has prompted a wave of responses regarding pedagogical reconfiguration, assessment, shifting academic norms, values, and practices. While scholarly discourse increasingly examines the benefits, limitations, and ethical implications of GenAI in higher education, students’ perspectives remain underrepresented and often limited to survey-based research focused on academic integrity…
Binge-Watching Netflix? Insights From Data Donations
Netflix is often credited with mainstreaming binge-watching through its release strategy and interface features. However, despite this reputation, data on actual consumption patterns remains scarce, enabling Netflix to shape the narrative about how content is consumed on its platform and what this implies about content quality and viewer attentiveness. This article provides unique empirical insights into Netflix viewing patterns in the Netherland…
“Your friendly AI assistant”: The anthropomorphic self-representations of ChatGPT and its implications for imagining AI
This study analyzes how ChatGPT portrays and describes itself, revealing misleading myths about AI technologies, specifically conversational agents based on large language models. This analysis allows for critical reflection on the potential harm these misconceptions may pose for public understanding of AI and related technologies. While previous research has explored AI discourses and representations more generally, few studies focus specificall…
Tool, companion or a catalyst force? Exploring sociotechnical imaginaries Within AI livestreams’ communities of practice
How online communities of practice (CoPs) around artificial intelligence (AI) construct, construe, and shape sociotechnical imaginaries is relatively unexplored, as most studies focus on elite discourse in politics, technology, and the media. More research is needed into specific communities and their views on AI, especially those who use it daily for personal interests. This can reveal to what extent dominant AI imaginaries in public discourse a…
Interface real estate: Amazon Prime and visibility politics
This paper investigates how Amazon Prime Video's interface design affects content visibility, specifically analysing the prioritisation of Prime-included versus third-party content. Using the Vignette tool on French accounts, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis of homepage structures, including row hierarchies and title heatmaps across multiple user profiles. We find that while Prime Video shares common strategies with other services (e.g. own …
Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society: Methods and Practices for Investigation and Intervention
Datafication is profoundly changing societies, often in concerning ways.It also opens possibilities for critical social action, so far little explored.This groundbreaking collection convenes a terrific range of leading international writers to showcase collaborative research into this important phenomenon."Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science "Thinking and doing, mens…
Pluralising critical technical practice
In this special issue, we turn to ideas of and approaches to critical technical practices (CTPs) as entry points to doing critique and doing things critically in digitally mediated cultures and societies. We explore the pluralisation of ‘critical technical practice’, starting from its early formulations in the context of AI research and development (Agre, 1997a, 1997b) to the many ways in which it has resonated and been taken up by different publ…
Balancing Needs and Values: A Multi-Stakeholder Examination of Algorithmic News Recommenders in the Netherlands
This paper aims to deepen understanding of the negotiation process underlying the values embedded in algorithmic news recommenders. The focus is on examining the perceptions and aspirations of different stakeholders and what values are ultimately incorporated in the design of a recommender system. Specifically, it investigates the development of value-driven recommendations at a leading Dutch online news platform, employing a combination of aspec…
Exploring the Value of Computational Methods for Metajournalistic Discourse: The Example of Covid-19 Reporting in Dutch Newspapers
The COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about trust in journalism and the quality of news reporting during societal crises. While journalists and media professionals frequently offered critical reflections based on personal experiences and observations, computational methods are not widely used to support these evaluative processes. We aim to extend the conversation on metajournalistic discourse by considering the inclusion of empirical methods fo…
Professional Follow-Up Communication as an Indicator of Public Value: Analyzing Dutch PSM’s Role in Public Debates Through Topic Modelling Newspaper Coverage
The legitimacy of public broadcasting has been under pressure for several decades. Attempts to repair and restore this legitimacy have led to an intensification of accountability instruments and measures. These instruments and measures tend to focus on consumption figures or cost-benefit analyses, requiring new ways of capturing public value. This article argues that, given the media’s persistent role as an interpreter and multiplier of news via …
Exploring Netflix myths: Towards more media industry studies and empirical research in studying video-on-demand
Using Netflix as a lens, this article identifies and unpacks three central interrelated myths - binge-watching, on-demand, and big data - surrounding global video-on-demand services. These myths are problematic because they make certain ideas about these services seem natural and self-evident, restricting our understanding of their role in culture and society. Moreover, these services provide little transparency and data access to evaluate their …
Situating Data: Inquiries in Algorithmic Culture
MediaMatters is an international book series published by Amsterdam University Press on current debates about emerging and transforming cultural practices that engage with (new) media technologies.Contributions to the series critically analyse and theorise the materiality, spatiality, mobility and performativity of these practices in book projects that engage with today's dynamic digital media culture.MediaMatters focuses on objects and practices…
Unpacking tool criticism as practice, in practice
Thanks to easy-to-use data analysis tools and digital infrastructures, even those humanities scholars who lack programming skills can work with large-scale empirical datasets in order to disclose patterns and correlations within them. Although empirical research trends have existed throughout the history of the humanities , these recently emergent possibilities have revived an empiricist attitude among humanities scholars schooled in more critica…
Situating Data: Inquiries in Algorithmic Culture
Building on an infrastructural approach, this chapter investigates the environmental impact of video streaming. It clarifies some of the less obvious relationships between media infrastructures, video compression standards, and electronics supply chains and demonstrates how their interactions unfold material effects on the environment. Complicating recent critical research on data centers, we posit that existing models for calculating the ecologi…
The multifaceted and situated data center imaginary of Dutch Twitter
Data centers are material structures that take up space, use resources like water and energy, and possess a large carbon footprint. This paper examines the broader long-term discussion around data centers during the period 2020-2022 in the Dutch Twittersphere. Through an analysis of tweets and images, it identifies and reflects on the communities active in the discussion and the range of visions and imaginaries of data centers they produce. Unpac…
Public Broadcasting and Topic Diversity in The Netherlands: Mentions of Public Broadcasters’ Programming in Newspapers as Indicators of Pluralism
Following debates on media pluralism and decentralised public service media, this article discusses the contribution of Dutch public broadcasters to pluralism. While the Dutch system operates under the assumption that external pluralism of broadcasting associations contributes to diversity, here we empirically explored this relation with respect to topics within societal discourse. We argue that mentions of public broadcasters’ programming in new…
Netflix & Big Data: The Strategic Ambivalence of an Entertainment Company
Netflix actively fueled what is known as the myth of big data, promoting their recommender system and data-driven production as cutting-edge, all-seeing, and all-knowing. Today, however, the company is increasingly acknowledging the role of human expertise and creativity. In this paper I explore the strategic repositioning of Netflix from technology company to entertainment company, enabling them to be understood as both “data” and “gut.” This tr…
Tool Criticism and the Computational Turn. A “Methodological Moment” in Media and Communication Studies
As ever more data becomes available to work with, the use of digital tools within the humanities and social sciences is becoming increasingly common. These digital tools are often imported from other institutional contexts and were originally developed for other purposes. They may harbour concepts and techniques that stand in tension with traditions in the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, there are many easy-to-use tools for the collecti…
Gendered language and employment Web sites: How search algorithms can cause allocative harm
Research on algorithms and artificial intelligence in the hiring process tends to focus on applicant screening and is often centered on the employer perspective. The role played by intermediaries, such as employment Web sites in the distribution of information about employment opportunities, tends to be overlooked. This paper examines the role of search algorithms on employment Web sites and their retrieval of employment opportunities for job see…
Data with its boots on the ground: Datawalking as research method
This article explores datawalking as a novel method in media and communication research for studying datafication. Drawing from existing literature, datawalking is characterized as an embodied, situated and generative practice. These affordances of walking help to tackle existing research challenges and connect lived experiences to data infrastructural concerns. More specifically, contemporary research on the deep mediatized city faces challenges…
Platform Imaginaries and Dutch Public Service Media
Over the past decade, public service media (PSM) have increasingly distributed content through digital platforms, most prominently YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article explores how this process of platformization, the integration of digital platforms in PSM, affects the public service remit of promoting key public values, such as universality, independence, and diversity. Specifically, it interrogates how Dutch PSM imagine plat…
The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data
As more and more aspects of everyday life are turned into machine-readable data, researchers are provided with rich resources for researching society. The novel methods and innovative tools to work with this data not only require new knowledge and skills, but also raise issues concerning the practices of investigation and publication. This book critically reflects on the role of data in academia and society and challenges overly optimistic expect…
Liveness redux: On media and their claim to be live
Increasingly media are asserting themselves as live. In television, this has been an important strategy and recently it has been employed by new media platforms such as Facebook, Periscope and Snapchat. This commentary explains the revival of live media by exploring the meaning and operations of the concept and argues the continued relevance of the concept for the study of social media. Traditionally, there have been three main approaches to the …
Social TV and the Participation Dilemma in NBC’s The Voice
In this article, I explore the perks and perils of social TV as a strategy for networks to drive tune-in to episodes as they air and to strengthen audience engagement. I do so by examining reality singing competitions in the United States, and specifically the NBC show The Voice. In analyzing the development of social media use in the program over the course of its first seven seasons, I identify a participation dilemma. This dilemma results from…
Netflix & Big Data: The Strategic Ambivalence of an Entertainment Company
Netflix actively fueled what is known as the myth of big data, promoting their recommender system and data-driven production as cutting-edge, all-seeing, and all-knowing. Today, however, the company is increasingly acknowledging the role of human expertise and creativity. In this paper I explore the strategic repositioning of Netflix from technology company to entertainment company, enabling them to be understood as both “data” and “gut.” This tr…
Data with its boots on the ground: Datawalking as research method
This article explores datawalking as a novel method in media and communication research for studying datafication. Drawing from existing literature, datawalking is characterized as an embodied, situated and generative practice. These affordances of walking help to tackle existing research challenges and connect lived experiences to data infrastructural concerns. More specifically, contemporary research on the deep mediatized city faces challenges…
YouTube’s Operational Logic: “The View” as Pervasive Category
Launched in 2005 as a platform for user-generated content (UGC), YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world. In this article, I focus on the site’s use of “the view,” which I argue serves as a pervasive category enacted through the platform, in its information regimes and beyond. The view supports a myth of viewer intentionality and satisfaction and serves as the operational logic of the platform as a whole. It is a category in Durk…
The multifaceted and situated data center imaginary of Dutch Twitter
Data centers are material structures that take up space, use resources like water and energy, and possess a large carbon footprint. This paper examines the broader long-term discussion around data centers during the period 2020-2022 in the Dutch Twittersphere. Through an analysis of tweets and images, it identifies and reflects on the communities active in the discussion and the range of visions and imaginaries of data centers they produce. Unpac…
Exploring the Value of Computational Methods for Metajournalistic Discourse: The Example of Covid-19 Reporting in Dutch Newspapers
The COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about trust in journalism and the quality of news reporting during societal crises. While journalists and media professionals frequently offered critical reflections based on personal experiences and observations, computational methods are not widely used to support these evaluative processes. We aim to extend the conversation on metajournalistic discourse by considering the inclusion of empirical methods fo…
Exploring Netflix myths: Towards more media industry studies and empirical research in studying video-on-demand
Using Netflix as a lens, this article identifies and unpacks three central interrelated myths - binge-watching, on-demand, and big data - surrounding global video-on-demand services. These myths are problematic because they make certain ideas about these services seem natural and self-evident, restricting our understanding of their role in culture and society. Moreover, these services provide little transparency and data access to evaluate their …
Mediating the Black Pete discussion on Facebook: Slacktivism, flaming wars, and deliberation
In this paper we counter the idea that Facebook is a unified medium and stress the need to analyze the distinct qualities of its pages. We do so by exploring the Black Pete discussion on Facebook that ignited when United Nations investigator Verene Shepherd held a plea for the Dutch government to abolish the Saint Nicholas tradition, which features a black-face character, Black Pete. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to inter…
Social TV and the Participation Dilemma in NBC’s The Voice
In this article, I explore the perks and perils of social TV as a strategy for networks to drive tune-in to episodes as they air and to strengthen audience engagement. I do so by examining reality singing competitions in the United States, and specifically the NBC show The Voice. In analyzing the development of social media use in the program over the course of its first seven seasons, I identify a participation dilemma. This dilemma results from…
Visualizing connectivity: Data as evidence in The Architecture of Radio
The Architecture of Radio is an iOS and Android app visualizing the data infrastructures that enable contemporary practices of observation, communication, and navigation. In this paper, we take the app as a starting point for exploring the broader issue of how notions of data as evidence wield their influence in visualization practice — even in the context of projects that their makers explicitly position as artistic or speculative endeavors. In …
Liveness redux: On media and their claim to be live
Increasingly media are asserting themselves as live. In television, this has been an important strategy and recently it has been employed by new media platforms such as Facebook, Periscope and Snapchat. This commentary explains the revival of live media by exploring the meaning and operations of the concept and argues the continued relevance of the concept for the study of social media. Traditionally, there have been three main approaches to the …
The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data
As more and more aspects of everyday life are turned into machine-readable data, researchers are provided with rich resources for researching society. The novel methods and innovative tools to work with this data not only require new knowledge and skills, but also raise issues concerning the practices of investigation and publication. This book critically reflects on the role of data in academia and society and challenges overly optimistic expect…
Keeping Up the Live: Recorded Television as Live Experience
Increasingly new media platforms are making claims to liveness. Looking back in television history we also find programmes that were recorded, but kept up the claims of being live. This raises the question as to what accounts for the attraction of the live? Focusing on Ein Platz für Tiere and the Netflix Live spoof of 2017 this article discusses disparate articulations of the live and addresses the need to balance freedom, chaos and control on th…
YouTube’s Operational Logic: “The View” as Pervasive Category
Launched in 2005 as a platform for user-generated content (UGC), YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world. In this article, I focus on the site’s use of “the view,” which I argue serves as a pervasive category enacted through the platform, in its information regimes and beyond. The view supports a myth of viewer intentionality and satisfaction and serves as the operational logic of the platform as a whole. It is a category in Durk…
Data with its boots on the ground: Datawalking as research method
This article explores datawalking as a novel method in media and communication research for studying datafication. Drawing from existing literature, datawalking is characterized as an embodied, situated and generative practice. These affordances of walking help to tackle existing research challenges and connect lived experiences to data infrastructural concerns. More specifically, contemporary research on the deep mediatized city faces challenges…
Platform Imaginaries and Dutch Public Service Media
Over the past decade, public service media (PSM) have increasingly distributed content through digital platforms, most prominently YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article explores how this process of platformization, the integration of digital platforms in PSM, affects the public service remit of promoting key public values, such as universality, independence, and diversity. Specifically, it interrogates how Dutch PSM imagine plat…
Tool Criticism and the Computational Turn. A “Methodological Moment” in Media and Communication Studies
As ever more data becomes available to work with, the use of digital tools within the humanities and social sciences is becoming increasingly common. These digital tools are often imported from other institutional contexts and were originally developed for other purposes. They may harbour concepts and techniques that stand in tension with traditions in the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, there are many easy-to-use tools for the collecti…
Gendered language and employment Web sites: How search algorithms can cause allocative harm
Research on algorithms and artificial intelligence in the hiring process tends to focus on applicant screening and is often centered on the employer perspective. The role played by intermediaries, such as employment Web sites in the distribution of information about employment opportunities, tends to be overlooked. This paper examines the role of search algorithms on employment Web sites and their retrieval of employment opportunities for job see…
Public Broadcasting and Topic Diversity in The Netherlands: Mentions of Public Broadcasters’ Programming in Newspapers as Indicators of Pluralism
Following debates on media pluralism and decentralised public service media, this article discusses the contribution of Dutch public broadcasters to pluralism. While the Dutch system operates under the assumption that external pluralism of broadcasting associations contributes to diversity, here we empirically explored this relation with respect to topics within societal discourse. We argue that mentions of public broadcasters’ programming in new…
Netflix & Big Data: The Strategic Ambivalence of an Entertainment Company
Netflix actively fueled what is known as the myth of big data, promoting their recommender system and data-driven production as cutting-edge, all-seeing, and all-knowing. Today, however, the company is increasingly acknowledging the role of human expertise and creativity. In this paper I explore the strategic repositioning of Netflix from technology company to entertainment company, enabling them to be understood as both “data” and “gut.” This tr…
Situating Data: Inquiries in Algorithmic Culture
MediaMatters is an international book series published by Amsterdam University Press on current debates about emerging and transforming cultural practices that engage with (new) media technologies.Contributions to the series critically analyse and theorise the materiality, spatiality, mobility and performativity of these practices in book projects that engage with today's dynamic digital media culture.MediaMatters focuses on objects and practices…
Unpacking tool criticism as practice, in practice
Thanks to easy-to-use data analysis tools and digital infrastructures, even those humanities scholars who lack programming skills can work with large-scale empirical datasets in order to disclose patterns and correlations within them. Although empirical research trends have existed throughout the history of the humanities , these recently emergent possibilities have revived an empiricist attitude among humanities scholars schooled in more critica…
Situating Data: Inquiries in Algorithmic Culture
Building on an infrastructural approach, this chapter investigates the environmental impact of video streaming. It clarifies some of the less obvious relationships between media infrastructures, video compression standards, and electronics supply chains and demonstrates how their interactions unfold material effects on the environment. Complicating recent critical research on data centers, we posit that existing models for calculating the ecologi…
The multifaceted and situated data center imaginary of Dutch Twitter
Data centers are material structures that take up space, use resources like water and energy, and possess a large carbon footprint. This paper examines the broader long-term discussion around data centers during the period 2020-2022 in the Dutch Twittersphere. Through an analysis of tweets and images, it identifies and reflects on the communities active in the discussion and the range of visions and imaginaries of data centers they produce. Unpac…
Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society: Methods and Practices for Investigation and Intervention
Datafication is profoundly changing societies, often in concerning ways.It also opens possibilities for critical social action, so far little explored.This groundbreaking collection convenes a terrific range of leading international writers to showcase collaborative research into this important phenomenon."Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science "Thinking and doing, mens…
Pluralising critical technical practice
In this special issue, we turn to ideas of and approaches to critical technical practices (CTPs) as entry points to doing critique and doing things critically in digitally mediated cultures and societies. We explore the pluralisation of ‘critical technical practice’, starting from its early formulations in the context of AI research and development (Agre, 1997a, 1997b) to the many ways in which it has resonated and been taken up by different publ…
Balancing Needs and Values: A Multi-Stakeholder Examination of Algorithmic News Recommenders in the Netherlands
This paper aims to deepen understanding of the negotiation process underlying the values embedded in algorithmic news recommenders. The focus is on examining the perceptions and aspirations of different stakeholders and what values are ultimately incorporated in the design of a recommender system. Specifically, it investigates the development of value-driven recommendations at a leading Dutch online news platform, employing a combination of aspec…
Exploring the Value of Computational Methods for Metajournalistic Discourse: The Example of Covid-19 Reporting in Dutch Newspapers
The COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about trust in journalism and the quality of news reporting during societal crises. While journalists and media professionals frequently offered critical reflections based on personal experiences and observations, computational methods are not widely used to support these evaluative processes. We aim to extend the conversation on metajournalistic discourse by considering the inclusion of empirical methods fo…
Professional Follow-Up Communication as an Indicator of Public Value: Analyzing Dutch PSM’s Role in Public Debates Through Topic Modelling Newspaper Coverage
The legitimacy of public broadcasting has been under pressure for several decades. Attempts to repair and restore this legitimacy have led to an intensification of accountability instruments and measures. These instruments and measures tend to focus on consumption figures or cost-benefit analyses, requiring new ways of capturing public value. This article argues that, given the media’s persistent role as an interpreter and multiplier of news via …
Exploring Netflix myths: Towards more media industry studies and empirical research in studying video-on-demand
Using Netflix as a lens, this article identifies and unpacks three central interrelated myths - binge-watching, on-demand, and big data - surrounding global video-on-demand services. These myths are problematic because they make certain ideas about these services seem natural and self-evident, restricting our understanding of their role in culture and society. Moreover, these services provide little transparency and data access to evaluate their …
Exploring VoD Services through Data Donations: A View from Netflix
Researching video-on-demand (VoD) services is notoriously challenging as these platforms maintain tight and strategic control over consumption data. To address this barrier, this chapter explores data donations as an innovative method for accessing real-world viewing data, made possible by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. Under the GDPR, individuals can request their personal data from platforms like Netflix an…
Video-on-Demand Research: New Methods, Old Questions
Internet video-on-demand (VoD) services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and iPlayer have been with us for almost two decades. A tremendous amount of research has been produced, addressing diverse topics including VoD catalogs, content, interfaces, curation, users, and governance–but there has been surprisingly little reflection on the methods used to study VoD services. In such a context, how might we speak of methodological innovation in VoD resea…
Computer Science (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Political science (19 works) · Law (11 works) · Media studies (11 works) · Media Studies and Communication (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works)