Film studies is concerned with the philosophical reflection on film and audiovisual art and with media technology and the screening of cinema in different contexts. In the digital age, film studies as an academic discipline is challenged by a continuous transformation of its object of study. The profound changes of its material base (from celluloid to digital) and of its screening practices (from theatre to living room and desktop) call for renewed theoretical and historical frameworks. The aim of Film Studies at the UvA is to continue to deal critically and creatively with such important shifts within film and film culture.

Global Cross-Media Cultures studies the rapidly changing media culture and its impact on the creative sector, cultural politics and everyday life. The study takes the medium of television as a starting point for approaching conceptual, social and cultural issues arising from the rise of digital, mobile and social media. 

Social and cultural practices are increasingly influenced by a mix of different media and the constant innovation of new media forms and technologies. Although television, with its reality shows, spectacular live events and coverage of major disasters, is still very important, its impact is complemented and increasingly replaced by social media, mobile phones and 'second screens'. 

New Media and Digital Culture specialises in the study of digital media in the humanities and addresses issues in digital humanities, information aesthetics and visualisation, internet studies, media art, media history, media theory, social media, virtual ethnography, data cultures and the politics of code. There is a strong practical component where implicit knowledge and up-to-date experience in web culture are considered essential skills. The study and skilful use of web-based applications such as blogs, wikis and software tools are focal points, as are research practices that diagnose online platforms and devices, such as search engines and social media sites. 

More specifically, New Media and Digital Culture at the UvA is concerned with research strategies for the critical study of Internet culture. The teaching and research team specialises in two lines of research. The first, that of critical digital culture and media theory, focuses on transformations in web and mobile culture, locative media and digital aesthetics, as well as on the relationship between new media and politics. This line investigates widely varying topics such as the consequences of the rise of walled gardens on the open web and the so-called 'new aesthetic', with its new dominant visual language and grammar. The second line of research, digital methods, focuses both on originally digital objects (such as hyperlink, tag, like, tweet) and on medium-specific methods and techniques such as folksonomy and crowd-sourcing. 

New media and digital culture participates in the current debates on 'big data', 'thick data' and 'long data', focusing in particular on the research potential of online data cultures, with an emphasis on using platforms and search engines as methods for cultural, artistic and empirical research interventions. 

Whether it is national and international politics, the tensions surrounding immigration and integration, or issues such as terrorism and the environment, the subjects reported by the media are complex. This places high demands on journalism as a profession. University-trained journalists are able to thoroughly research complex problems, analyse them quickly and translate them into a journalistic quality product.

Archival and Information Studies focuses on archive formation, archive management and archive use in the broadest sense of the word. Archivists are trained, attention is paid to contemporary archival theory and practice, and insight is provided into the archive of the past and future. 

The 'computational turn' has led to major changes in the way people and institutions create, use, collect, share and preserve information. Information is the vital fuel for a growing number of applications in daily life and has become a basic necessity of life, just like food, energy or transport. The result is fragmentation and individualisation of data creation and data use. Good data management is essential in order to be able to use it when it is needed. 

What are the implications of the 'computational turn' for information and archive management? How are data and information used and re-used in bureaucratic practices, decision-making and information processes? What is needed in a data-driven society to be able to account for and reconstruct the actions of people and organisations in the longer term? How can relevant information be kept permanently accessible? How do data-driven applications transform important cultural and social values such as transparency and privacy? How can archives, sometimes formed in the distant past, remain meaningfully linked to the needs of the present? These questions are central to Archival and Information Studies.