Pub Date : 2022-07-27DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2103987
Corina MacDonald
Abstract This essay explores the emergence of self-archiving practices in the 1990s as a form of academic labour that is intimately tied to the popularisation of the Internet. It argues that self-archiving is part of a sociotechnical imaginary of networked scholarly communication that has helped to shape understandings of digital scholarship and dissemination over the past three decades. Focussing on influential texts written by open access archivangelist Stevan Harnad in 1990 and 1994, the essay analyzes the language and discursive strategies used to promote self-archiving as form of collective scholarly exchange. Through these writings, Harnad helped to articulate scholars to the Internet as a medium of publication, with impacts still seen today in policy discussions around open access and the public good that shape relations of knowledge production under contemporary forms of capitalism.
{"title":"Imagining networked scholarly communication: self-archiving, academic labour, and the early internet","authors":"Corina MacDonald","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2103987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2103987","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay explores the emergence of self-archiving practices in the 1990s as a form of academic labour that is intimately tied to the popularisation of the Internet. It argues that self-archiving is part of a sociotechnical imaginary of networked scholarly communication that has helped to shape understandings of digital scholarship and dissemination over the past three decades. Focussing on influential texts written by open access archivangelist Stevan Harnad in 1990 and 1994, the essay analyzes the language and discursive strategies used to promote self-archiving as form of collective scholarly exchange. Through these writings, Harnad helped to articulate scholars to the Internet as a medium of publication, with impacts still seen today in policy discussions around open access and the public good that shape relations of knowledge production under contemporary forms of capitalism.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"412 - 431"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47349918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-25DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2103988
Kieran Hegarty
Abstract Web archives are increasingly considered key infrastructure for web histories, yet the story of their initial development is often overlooked. Paying attention to the period between the emergence of the web and the first web archives, this article asks: how was the archived web conceived as an object of knowledge? And how have its conceptual origins shaped web archives as a window into the web’s past? Drawing on ethnographic and historical research at one of the first web archiving institutions, the National Library of Australia, it details how systems, standards, and skills in use at the library were applied to a nascent web. It shows how archiving the web became both conceivable and actionable by library workers as they came to understand and act on various web-based materials as types of publications. Reflecting on this history, this article argues that present-day web archives have inherited both strengths and limitations from the older knowledge infrastructures from which they emerged. By detailing the messy, incremental path of infrastructural development, this article extends recent STS-inflected work on web archives as epistemic agents, adding a historical dimension to our understanding of how web archives enable and constrain particular ways of knowing the web’s past.
{"title":"The invention of the archived web: tracing the influence of library frameworks on web archiving infrastructure","authors":"Kieran Hegarty","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2103988","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2103988","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Web archives are increasingly considered key infrastructure for web histories, yet the story of their initial development is often overlooked. Paying attention to the period between the emergence of the web and the first web archives, this article asks: how was the archived web conceived as an object of knowledge? And how have its conceptual origins shaped web archives as a window into the web’s past? Drawing on ethnographic and historical research at one of the first web archiving institutions, the National Library of Australia, it details how systems, standards, and skills in use at the library were applied to a nascent web. It shows how archiving the web became both conceivable and actionable by library workers as they came to understand and act on various web-based materials as types of publications. Reflecting on this history, this article argues that present-day web archives have inherited both strengths and limitations from the older knowledge infrastructures from which they emerged. By detailing the messy, incremental path of infrastructural development, this article extends recent STS-inflected work on web archives as epistemic agents, adding a historical dimension to our understanding of how web archives enable and constrain particular ways of knowing the web’s past.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"432 - 451"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42373399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-25DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2103989
Terri Lee Harel
Abstract Through a case study of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, this paper looks at how Reddit users came together to document what they perceived as a significant historical event in United States history. By comparing how three subreddits selected content for archiving and the discussions they sparked, this paper contributes a perspective about how archiving efforts are carried out by everyday internet users and how researchers might put these efforts to use in the future. Studying everyday internet users’ compulsion to document reveals not only their approaches to archiving, but also how they are experiencing a historical event. “Rogue archiving” has saved what might otherwise be lost to content removals and overnight website closures. But even rogue archiving groups have set processes and structures which enable them to produce web and digital archives. What about archiving efforts that are even more informal and spontaneous? On Reddit, people responded to January 6 by self-organising archiving efforts, thereby revealing logics to and motivations for archiving—and their reactions to the day’s events.
{"title":"Archives in the making: documenting the January 6 capitol riot on Reddit","authors":"Terri Lee Harel","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2103989","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2103989","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Through a case study of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, this paper looks at how Reddit users came together to document what they perceived as a significant historical event in United States history. By comparing how three subreddits selected content for archiving and the discussions they sparked, this paper contributes a perspective about how archiving efforts are carried out by everyday internet users and how researchers might put these efforts to use in the future. Studying everyday internet users’ compulsion to document reveals not only their approaches to archiving, but also how they are experiencing a historical event. “Rogue archiving” has saved what might otherwise be lost to content removals and overnight website closures. But even rogue archiving groups have set processes and structures which enable them to produce web and digital archives. What about archiving efforts that are even more informal and spontaneous? On Reddit, people responded to January 6 by self-organising archiving efforts, thereby revealing logics to and motivations for archiving—and their reactions to the day’s events.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"391 - 411"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44490894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-24DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2089835
Gustavo Gomez-Mejia
Abstract This article analyses the French mainstreamisation process of web related vocabularies through the lens of a collection of archived fragments from national and regional media outlets. A cultural materialist approach is chosen to question the “naturalisation” of a so-called “web language” (langage web) and highlights the role of mediations which help turn once-marginal “jargon” terms into popular digital keywords. This perspective is explored through a diptych of case studies on the discursive journeys of “Buzz” and “Trolls” (1999–2021) using texts and screenshots from Europresse and Internet Archive.
{"title":"The mainstreamisation of web related vocabulary: “Buzz” and “Trolls” in French media archives","authors":"Gustavo Gomez-Mejia","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2089835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2089835","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article analyses the French mainstreamisation process of web related vocabularies through the lens of a collection of archived fragments from national and regional media outlets. A cultural materialist approach is chosen to question the “naturalisation” of a so-called “web language” (langage web) and highlights the role of mediations which help turn once-marginal “jargon” terms into popular digital keywords. This perspective is explored through a diptych of case studies on the discursive journeys of “Buzz” and “Trolls” (1999–2021) using texts and screenshots from Europresse and Internet Archive.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"47 - 75"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41646157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-09DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2084823
Brian McKitrick, Martin Gibbs, Melissa J. Rogerson, Bjørn Nansen, Charlotte Pierce
Abstract The Something Awful Let’s Play subforum is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the Let’s Play (LP) media phenomenon. LPs typically involve people recording themselves playing games while providing commentary. LPs are an important media form in themselves as well as being an important antecedent to many contemporary and popular media forms such as live streaming, esports and speed-running. An examination of the Something Awful LP subforum can contribute to an understanding of the origins of LPs and the community that created them. In this paper, we report on a study of the Something Awful LP subforum and describe the kinds of engagement the community participates in the top threads, as well as looking to see if there are specific individuals responsible for guiding the subforum overall. We collected data from the thousands of public threads posted in the LP subforum, from its inception in 2007 to the end of 2020. The analysis of these postings presented in this paper draws on previous understandings of the behavioral roles, forms of engagement, and policing of practices that often occur on internet forums as part of the regulation and organization of associated online communities. Our results show that the LP subforum was not dominated by a small minority of users that dictated the community’s LP posting, recording and commentary practices, and that the content of the specific threads was much more important in determining what forms of LPs became popular.
{"title":"Let’s play something awful: a historical analysis of 14 years of threads","authors":"Brian McKitrick, Martin Gibbs, Melissa J. Rogerson, Bjørn Nansen, Charlotte Pierce","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2084823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2084823","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Something Awful Let’s Play subforum is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the Let’s Play (LP) media phenomenon. LPs typically involve people recording themselves playing games while providing commentary. LPs are an important media form in themselves as well as being an important antecedent to many contemporary and popular media forms such as live streaming, esports and speed-running. An examination of the Something Awful LP subforum can contribute to an understanding of the origins of LPs and the community that created them. In this paper, we report on a study of the Something Awful LP subforum and describe the kinds of engagement the community participates in the top threads, as well as looking to see if there are specific individuals responsible for guiding the subforum overall. We collected data from the thousands of public threads posted in the LP subforum, from its inception in 2007 to the end of 2020. The analysis of these postings presented in this paper draws on previous understandings of the behavioral roles, forms of engagement, and policing of practices that often occur on internet forums as part of the regulation and organization of associated online communities. Our results show that the LP subforum was not dominated by a small minority of users that dictated the community’s LP posting, recording and commentary practices, and that the content of the specific threads was much more important in determining what forms of LPs became popular.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"122 - 140"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46672758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-11DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2075156
Ben T. Pettis
{"title":"The New Laws of Love: Online Dating and the Privatization of Intimacy","authors":"Ben T. Pettis","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2075156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2075156","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"473 - 476"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60126734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2057751
Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając, Attila Márton
Abstract This paper describes the history of Couchsurfing, a platform matching free, peer-to-peer hospitality launched in 2004, as a series of four deaths and resurrections. The platform was first brought back to life by its members, in the spirit of open collaboration, then by its leaders, in an effort to legitimize the platform as a US-based charity, then by Silicon Valley investors, seeking to mold it into a profitable startup, and finally by private investors, only to find itself yet again in jeopardy as a result of Covid-19. The aim of the paper is to consider what the history of this niche platform tells us about the changing ecology of the Web as a whole. Through that lens, Couchsurfing’s struggles to respond to drastic changes in its environment are indicative of the growing specialization of the Web into a closed and monetized information ecosystem.
{"title":"The four deaths of Couchsurfing and the changing ecology of the web","authors":"Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając, Attila Márton","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2057751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2057751","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper describes the history of Couchsurfing, a platform matching free, peer-to-peer hospitality launched in 2004, as a series of four deaths and resurrections. The platform was first brought back to life by its members, in the spirit of open collaboration, then by its leaders, in an effort to legitimize the platform as a US-based charity, then by Silicon Valley investors, seeking to mold it into a profitable startup, and finally by private investors, only to find itself yet again in jeopardy as a result of Covid-19. The aim of the paper is to consider what the history of this niche platform tells us about the changing ecology of the Web as a whole. Through that lens, Couchsurfing’s struggles to respond to drastic changes in its environment are indicative of the growing specialization of the Web into a closed and monetized information ecosystem.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"68 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43150017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2071396
Muira McCammon, Diami Virgilio, Cody Ogden, Kevin Ackermann, Ethan Zuckerman, R. Gehl, Saima Akhtar, Sultan Al-Azri, C. Steele, A. M. Hamilton, Anat Ben-David, Sarah L. Wasserman, Sara Namusoga-Kaale, Joy Rankin
Abstract This roundtable, which unfolded over many months in 2021, brought fourteen technologists and scholars together for a full-fledged discussion of platforms and death as a metaphor. The discussion proceeds with each person responding to the previous question and then posing one of their own. Some contributors discuss the ethical quandaries that await researchers attempting to exhume digital lifeworlds of the past. Others contemplate who gets a say in what aspects of platform life are preserved. Reflecting moments of convergence and divergence around the ethics and politics of platform death, the roundtable reads as a kaleidoscope of sociotechnical values and a map of the people fighting for control over digital infrastructure that has fallen apart.
{"title":"Dead-and-dying platforms: a roundtable","authors":"Muira McCammon, Diami Virgilio, Cody Ogden, Kevin Ackermann, Ethan Zuckerman, R. Gehl, Saima Akhtar, Sultan Al-Azri, C. Steele, A. M. Hamilton, Anat Ben-David, Sarah L. Wasserman, Sara Namusoga-Kaale, Joy Rankin","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2071396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2071396","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This roundtable, which unfolded over many months in 2021, brought fourteen technologists and scholars together for a full-fledged discussion of platforms and death as a metaphor. The discussion proceeds with each person responding to the previous question and then posing one of their own. Some contributors discuss the ethical quandaries that await researchers attempting to exhume digital lifeworlds of the past. Others contemplate who gets a say in what aspects of platform life are preserved. Reflecting moments of convergence and divergence around the ethics and politics of platform death, the roundtable reads as a kaleidoscope of sociotechnical values and a map of the people fighting for control over digital infrastructure that has fallen apart.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"14 - 30"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42189560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2071395
Muira McCammon, J. Lingel
Abstract This double special issue explores internet histories through the lens of “platform death” as a way of understanding how digital communities grapple with absence, invisibility, and disappearance. Collectively, the contributions in this issue address the cultural, geopolitical, economic, and socio-legal repercussions of what happens when platforms fail, decline, or expire. The manuscripts draw on divergent methods, data, and analytical frameworks; in turn, they address what digital death as a metaphor reveals about the internet’s growth and stagnation, its present and futures, and its multiplicities. This collaboration has drawn on a collective understanding that mortality as a metaphor can serve as a discursive mode of contesting the control and corporatization of the internet. The impetus for it came from a panel in the Communication History Division at the May 2020 International Communication Association’s Annual Conference, entitled “Dead-and-dying platforms: The poetics, politics, and perils of internet history.” We hope its contents inspire other scholars to think creatively and daringly about technological failure, infrastructural precarity, and digital decline.
{"title":"Situating dead-and-dying platforms: technological failure, infrastructural precarity, and digital decline","authors":"Muira McCammon, J. Lingel","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2071395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2071395","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This double special issue explores internet histories through the lens of “platform death” as a way of understanding how digital communities grapple with absence, invisibility, and disappearance. Collectively, the contributions in this issue address the cultural, geopolitical, economic, and socio-legal repercussions of what happens when platforms fail, decline, or expire. The manuscripts draw on divergent methods, data, and analytical frameworks; in turn, they address what digital death as a metaphor reveals about the internet’s growth and stagnation, its present and futures, and its multiplicities. This collaboration has drawn on a collective understanding that mortality as a metaphor can serve as a discursive mode of contesting the control and corporatization of the internet. The impetus for it came from a panel in the Communication History Division at the May 2020 International Communication Association’s Annual Conference, entitled “Dead-and-dying platforms: The poetics, politics, and perils of internet history.” We hope its contents inspire other scholars to think creatively and daringly about technological failure, infrastructural precarity, and digital decline.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"1 - 13"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45419773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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