I am blogging from Utrecht at the traditional public PhD defence of German media scientist Mirko Tobias Schaefer. The finishing of a new media theory dissertation in the Netherlands is still a rare case so a few of showed up (like Florian Cramer and Hajo from Worm, also Rotterdam). As far as I understood Schaefer studied ‘implicit participation’ on Web 2.0 (game) platform. The discussion in front of the dressed-up folklore professors concentrated on the economics of internet and its relation to the creative industries. The ‘value’  of the user is at the centre of the debate here. Schaefer, who proclaimed not to be a marxist, showed that there is space for a post-marxist critical analysis of the new media industries. Now it’s time to go and read the actual work. Mirko and the new media department of Utrecht University, congratulations!

You can download the dissertation here.