Pub Date : 2022-04-01DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2057752
R. Wilken
Abstract This article builds an historical account of the rise and fall of US mapping firm MapQuest. It charts the emergence and rapid rise of MapQuest as a popular early provider of online maps – detailing notable innovations, key developments, and successive ownership changes, and the significance of these for MapQuest – and it documents its equally rapid fall. The article draws on political economy of communication (and geographic political economy) approaches in its analysis of MapQuest. This critical framework is valuable for the way that it draws attention to the different stakeholders involved in controlling and commercialising MapQuest’s applications for web-based and mobile devices, and the structural factors that shape and influence the industries in which it operates. From this analysis, it is argued that a range of factors led to MapQuest’s dramatically diminished market share within the field of online mapping. These included: a lack of revenue generation opportunities; significant map data quality issues; loss of consumer visibility due to search algorithm interference; and a reactive rather than proactive approach to innovation under consecutive owners. This account of MapQuest is important in two ways. First, while MapQuest is a significant firm in the history of contemporary digital mapping, particularly as a pioneer of online distributed mapping, the firm’s history and its contribution to digital mapping remains under-represented in internet histories scholarship. Second, this article contributes to growing interest in and deepening critical understanding of platform precarity, asking: What becomes of platforms when they falter? And what are the factors that contribute to their decline?
{"title":"The rise and fall of MapQuest","authors":"R. Wilken","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2057752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2057752","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article builds an historical account of the rise and fall of US mapping firm MapQuest. It charts the emergence and rapid rise of MapQuest as a popular early provider of online maps – detailing notable innovations, key developments, and successive ownership changes, and the significance of these for MapQuest – and it documents its equally rapid fall. The article draws on political economy of communication (and geographic political economy) approaches in its analysis of MapQuest. This critical framework is valuable for the way that it draws attention to the different stakeholders involved in controlling and commercialising MapQuest’s applications for web-based and mobile devices, and the structural factors that shape and influence the industries in which it operates. From this analysis, it is argued that a range of factors led to MapQuest’s dramatically diminished market share within the field of online mapping. These included: a lack of revenue generation opportunities; significant map data quality issues; loss of consumer visibility due to search algorithm interference; and a reactive rather than proactive approach to innovation under consecutive owners. This account of MapQuest is important in two ways. First, while MapQuest is a significant firm in the history of contemporary digital mapping, particularly as a pioneer of online distributed mapping, the firm’s history and its contribution to digital mapping remains under-represented in internet histories scholarship. Second, this article contributes to growing interest in and deepening critical understanding of platform precarity, asking: What becomes of platforms when they falter? And what are the factors that contribute to their decline?","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"172 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44674129","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 : 2022-03-31DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2055274
Derren Wilson, Saeed-Ul Hassan, N. Aljohani, Anna Visvizi, R. Nawaz
Abstract Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) express the visual design of a website through code and remain an understudied area of web history. Although CSS was proposed as a method of adding a design layer to HTML documents early on in the development of the web, they only crossed from a marginal position to mainstream usage after a long period of proselytising by web designers working towards “web standards”. The CSS Zen Garden grassroots initiative aimed at negotiating, mainstreaming and archiving possible methods of CSS web design, while dealing with varying levels of browser support for the technology. Using the source code of the CSS Zen Garden and the accompanying book, this paper demonstrates that while the visual designs were complex and sophisticated, the CSS lived within an ecosystem of related platforms, i.e., web browsers, screen sizes and design software, which constrained its use and required enormous sensitivity to the possibilities browser ecosystems could reliably provide. As the CSS Zen Garden was maintained for over ten years, it also acts as a unique site to trace the continuing development of web design, and the imaginaries expressed in the Zen Garden can also be related to ethical dimensions that influence the process of web design. Compared to Flash-based web design, work implemented using CSS required a greater willingness to negotiate source code configurations between browser platforms. Following the history of the individuals responsible for creating and contributing to the CSS Zen Garden shows the continuing influence of layer-based metaphors of design separated from content within web source code.
层叠样式表(CSS)通过代码表达网站的视觉设计，在web历史上仍然是一个未被充分研究的领域。尽管在web开发的早期，CSS被提议作为在HTML文档中添加设计层的一种方法，但经过长期致力于“web标准”的网页设计师的传教，它们才从边缘位置跨越到主流使用。CSS禅宗花园的基层倡议旨在协商、主流化和存档CSS网页设计的可能方法，同时处理不同级别的浏览器对该技术的支持。本文使用CSS禅宗花园的源代码和随附的书，证明了虽然视觉设计是复杂而复杂的，CSS生活在一个相关平台的生态系统中，即web浏览器，屏幕尺寸和设计软件，这限制了它的使用，并且需要对浏览器生态系统可以可靠地提供的可能性具有极大的敏感性。由于CSS禅宗花园维持了十多年，它也是一个独特的网站，可以追溯网页设计的持续发展，禅宗花园所表达的想象也可以与影响网页设计过程的伦理维度有关。与基于flash的网页设计相比，使用CSS实现的工作需要更大的意愿在浏览器平台之间协商源代码配置。跟随那些负责创建和贡献CSS Zen Garden的个人的历史，我们可以看到基于层的设计隐喻与web源代码中的内容分离的持续影响。
{"title":"Demonstrating and negotiating the adoption of web design technologies: Cascading Style Sheets and the CSS Zen Garden","authors":"Derren Wilson, Saeed-Ul Hassan, N. Aljohani, Anna Visvizi, R. Nawaz","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2055274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2055274","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) express the visual design of a website through code and remain an understudied area of web history. Although CSS was proposed as a method of adding a design layer to HTML documents early on in the development of the web, they only crossed from a marginal position to mainstream usage after a long period of proselytising by web designers working towards “web standards”. The CSS Zen Garden grassroots initiative aimed at negotiating, mainstreaming and archiving possible methods of CSS web design, while dealing with varying levels of browser support for the technology. Using the source code of the CSS Zen Garden and the accompanying book, this paper demonstrates that while the visual designs were complex and sophisticated, the CSS lived within an ecosystem of related platforms, i.e., web browsers, screen sizes and design software, which constrained its use and required enormous sensitivity to the possibilities browser ecosystems could reliably provide. As the CSS Zen Garden was maintained for over ten years, it also acts as a unique site to trace the continuing development of web design, and the imaginaries expressed in the Zen Garden can also be related to ethical dimensions that influence the process of web design. Compared to Flash-based web design, work implemented using CSS required a greater willingness to negotiate source code configurations between browser platforms. Following the history of the individuals responsible for creating and contributing to the CSS Zen Garden shows the continuing influence of layer-based metaphors of design separated from content within web source code.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"27 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43586061","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 : 2022-03-17DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2051331
Katie Mackinnon
Abstract GeoCities was once one of the most popular platforms on the web. This free web-hosting site was a place where people from a range of geographic and socio-cultural locations could build their own websites and communities online. In 1999, Yahoo! acquired the platform in a historic USD$3.7B transaction, but the following decade saw the platform decline into a state of near total non-use. In 2009, it was taken offline. This paper demonstrates how the GeoCities web archives can be used to find digital traces of destroyed web pages and “platform eulogies” from the user’s perspective that provide insights into the tensions that ultimately led to GeoCities death.
{"title":"The death of GeoCities: seeking destruction and platform eulogies in Web archives","authors":"Katie Mackinnon","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2051331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2051331","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract GeoCities was once one of the most popular platforms on the web. This free web-hosting site was a place where people from a range of geographic and socio-cultural locations could build their own websites and communities online. In 1999, Yahoo! acquired the platform in a historic USD$3.7B transaction, but the following decade saw the platform decline into a state of near total non-use. In 2009, it was taken offline. This paper demonstrates how the GeoCities web archives can be used to find digital traces of destroyed web pages and “platform eulogies” from the user’s perspective that provide insights into the tensions that ultimately led to GeoCities death.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"237 - 252"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42707631","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 : 2022-03-11DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2049069
Tamara Kneese
Abstract Launched in 1993, the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV), located in Blacksburg, Virginia and connected to Virginia Tech, was an experiment in community computing. Through its funding models and technologies, the BEV united government, municipal, corporate, and university interests. While it received media attention and scholarly engagement in its prime, the BEV has not yet been reconsidered as part of the larger critical history of virtual communities and platforms. Through primary and secondary accounts of the BEV, I argue that the BEV’s trajectory is emblematic of how communities learn to negotiate going online for the first time, balancing the visions of designers and funders with those of users. The BEV was both a prototype and, later, a laboratory for participatory design, connecting an entire town to the World Wide Web. Its online listings of local businesses and e-commerce hub, known as the Village Mall, applications like MOOSburg—a multi-user domain—and an interactive Virtual School wired the town. The BEV was a small, rural, geographically-situated community used by senior citizens and college students alike, but it was not always inclusive. I point to critical scholarship about the BEV and other early electronic communities to situate the BEV within larger theoretical considerations regarding the relationship between electronic communities and local geographies, the different expectations of designers versus users, and the problems of inclusion, moderation, and control, even when access is provided.
{"title":"“They’re describing Yelp in 1992!”: revisiting the Blacksburg Electronic Village","authors":"Tamara Kneese","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2049069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2049069","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Launched in 1993, the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV), located in Blacksburg, Virginia and connected to Virginia Tech, was an experiment in community computing. Through its funding models and technologies, the BEV united government, municipal, corporate, and university interests. While it received media attention and scholarly engagement in its prime, the BEV has not yet been reconsidered as part of the larger critical history of virtual communities and platforms. Through primary and secondary accounts of the BEV, I argue that the BEV’s trajectory is emblematic of how communities learn to negotiate going online for the first time, balancing the visions of designers and funders with those of users. The BEV was both a prototype and, later, a laboratory for participatory design, connecting an entire town to the World Wide Web. Its online listings of local businesses and e-commerce hub, known as the Village Mall, applications like MOOSburg—a multi-user domain—and an interactive Virtual School wired the town. The BEV was a small, rural, geographically-situated community used by senior citizens and college students alike, but it was not always inclusive. I point to critical scholarship about the BEV and other early electronic communities to situate the BEV within larger theoretical considerations regarding the relationship between electronic communities and local geographies, the different expectations of designers versus users, and the problems of inclusion, moderation, and control, even when access is provided.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"154 - 171"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42144653","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 : 2022-02-14DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2022.2038867
Alexis de Coning
Abstract This article challenges a narrow, teleological approach to ‘platform death’ by looking at discursive continuity of a ‘dead’ men’s rights Usenet newsgroup. Using a data set of 1250 posts spanning 1994 − 2002, I track three thematic trends in the data: the ‘special treatment’ women and minorities receive that deny men their rights, the inverse relationship between men’s rights and responsibilities, and men’s anxieties around gendered roles in the family and at work. However, the ‘prelife’ and ‘afterlife’ of these themes in the men’s rights movement indicates the ways in which discourses persist across time and media formats despite ‘platform death.’ This has implications for how we understand and contextualize the contemporary men’s rights movement and highlights the limitations of platform-focused responses to online misogyny and extremism.
{"title":"A ‘lifetime of indentured servitude:’ rights, labor, and gender anxieties in a dead men’s rights newsgroup","authors":"Alexis de Coning","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2022.2038867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2022.2038867","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article challenges a narrow, teleological approach to ‘platform death’ by looking at discursive continuity of a ‘dead’ men’s rights Usenet newsgroup. Using a data set of 1250 posts spanning 1994 − 2002, I track three thematic trends in the data: the ‘special treatment’ women and minorities receive that deny men their rights, the inverse relationship between men’s rights and responsibilities, and men’s anxieties around gendered roles in the family and at work. However, the ‘prelife’ and ‘afterlife’ of these themes in the men’s rights movement indicates the ways in which discourses persist across time and media formats despite ‘platform death.’ This has implications for how we understand and contextualize the contemporary men’s rights movement and highlights the limitations of platform-focused responses to online misogyny and extremism.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"223 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46737960","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 : 2022-02-07DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2021.1992992
Mato Brautović
Abstract The history of computer networks is relatively well described in Western literature but some parts of the world have been neglected. This paper explores the first ways in which computer networks were used in Yugoslavia, since these are different from the modes used in the West or Russia, because the dissolution of the country – mixed with its transition from communism to democracy and the wars for independence – created an environment which allowed computer networks to be used in unprecedented ways. The paper uses a mix of historical method, computational methods for collecting and analysing USENET data, semi-structured interview, archival research, and qualitative online observation. The main findings show that access to Western technology and participation in academic networks enabled Yugoslavian STEM academia and hackers to use computer networks for the first computer networks’ propaganda war. Slovenians, Croatians, and Serbians created electronic mailing lists through which they tried to manipulate international actors and to bond the diaspora for a common cause, and they additionally fought in USENET discussion groups by implementing trolling techniques.
{"title":"The first propaganda war through computer networks: STEM academia and the breakup of Yugoslavia","authors":"Mato Brautović","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2021.1992992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1992992","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The history of computer networks is relatively well described in Western literature but some parts of the world have been neglected. This paper explores the first ways in which computer networks were used in Yugoslavia, since these are different from the modes used in the West or Russia, because the dissolution of the country – mixed with its transition from communism to democracy and the wars for independence – created an environment which allowed computer networks to be used in unprecedented ways. The paper uses a mix of historical method, computational methods for collecting and analysing USENET data, semi-structured interview, archival research, and qualitative online observation. The main findings show that access to Western technology and participation in academic networks enabled Yugoslavian STEM academia and hackers to use computer networks for the first computer networks’ propaganda war. Slovenians, Croatians, and Serbians created electronic mailing lists through which they tried to manipulate international actors and to bond the diaspora for a common cause, and they additionally fought in USENET discussion groups by implementing trolling techniques.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"179 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42597793","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 : 2021-12-28DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2021.2020470
K. Montalbano
Abstract This article compares the socio-legal factors and challenges contributing to the failure of the deceased anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Yik Yak, with a living anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Jodel. By analysing each platform’s Terms of Service (ToS) statements alongside their guidelines and values, the article traces how anonymous, hyperlocal applications both diverge from and mirror communication law in fashioning their approaches to content moderation and responses to the dark side of communication. The article concludes that in contrast with Yik Yak, which attempted to rely on its ToS and limited community monitoring system to curb cyberbullying and harassment, the case of Jodel—and by extension, the German approach to regulating hate speech and bullying—suggests that surviving hyperlocal, anonymous platforms of U.S. origin should not solely hide behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Instead, they should aim to combine (1) robust ToS statements with (2) specific community values or guidelines that are fortified by (3) a comprehensive monitoring system in order to curb abusive behaviour on their platforms.
{"title":"“Yakety yak: Don’t talk back”: An autopsy of anonymity gone awry","authors":"K. Montalbano","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2021.2020470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.2020470","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article compares the socio-legal factors and challenges contributing to the failure of the deceased anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Yik Yak, with a living anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Jodel. By analysing each platform’s Terms of Service (ToS) statements alongside their guidelines and values, the article traces how anonymous, hyperlocal applications both diverge from and mirror communication law in fashioning their approaches to content moderation and responses to the dark side of communication. The article concludes that in contrast with Yik Yak, which attempted to rely on its ToS and limited community monitoring system to curb cyberbullying and harassment, the case of Jodel—and by extension, the German approach to regulating hate speech and bullying—suggests that surviving hyperlocal, anonymous platforms of U.S. origin should not solely hide behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Instead, they should aim to combine (1) robust ToS statements with (2) specific community values or guidelines that are fortified by (3) a comprehensive monitoring system in order to curb abusive behaviour on their platforms.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"6 1","pages":"191 - 205"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42199901","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 : 2021-12-13DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2021.2015967
Sebastiaan Gorissen, R. Gehl
Abstract In 2005, the paths of Wikipedia and The Tor Project crossed publicly and ferociously. Tired of trolls and vandals, Wikipedia decided to block all Tor users from editing encyclopaedia articles. The Tor Project protested, arguing that such a block was not only ineffective, but constituted a form of censorship. This conflict came at a time when both projects were fighting to establish, maintain, and expand their perceived legitimacy. Using a threefold definition of “legitimacy,” this essay explores the Wikipedia/Tor conflict as a legitimacy conflict. We argue that Wikipedia was heavily invested in a conception of legitimacy as authenticity, focusing on who should be counted as a Wikipedian and who should be excluded. In contrast, the Tor Project was more concerned with Weberian legitimacy, challenging states’ claims to the monopoly of violent power. However, both projects shared an interest in acquiring resources and respect, or legitimacy as propriety. To explain this conflict, we draw on an archive of primary source emails and historical documents focusing on the early days (2001–2005) of both projects.
{"title":"When Wikipedia met Tor: trials of legitimacy at a key moment in internet history","authors":"Sebastiaan Gorissen, R. Gehl","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2021.2015967","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.2015967","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 2005, the paths of Wikipedia and The Tor Project crossed publicly and ferociously. Tired of trolls and vandals, Wikipedia decided to block all Tor users from editing encyclopaedia articles. The Tor Project protested, arguing that such a block was not only ineffective, but constituted a form of censorship. This conflict came at a time when both projects were fighting to establish, maintain, and expand their perceived legitimacy. Using a threefold definition of “legitimacy,” this essay explores the Wikipedia/Tor conflict as a legitimacy conflict. We argue that Wikipedia was heavily invested in a conception of legitimacy as authenticity, focusing on who should be counted as a Wikipedian and who should be excluded. In contrast, the Tor Project was more concerned with Weberian legitimacy, challenging states’ claims to the monopoly of violent power. However, both projects shared an interest in acquiring resources and respect, or legitimacy as propriety. To explain this conflict, we draw on an archive of primary source emails and historical documents focusing on the early days (2001–2005) of both projects.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"105 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42741618","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 : 2021-12-13DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2021.2000246
Migle Bareikyte
Abstract Although the Internet is a key global infrastructure, it is still often perceived in an abstract manner by the general public, which tends to disregard how the Internet emerges in different places. In contrast, this paper situates the Internet as infrastructure development in post-socialist Lithuania against the backdrop of multi-sited fieldwork within its telecom industry. Drawing on fieldwork material analysis comprised of qualitative interviews, participatory observation and archival research as well as previous research from media studies, this paper contributes to Internet studies via three conceptual motifs that emerged from fieldwork material—infrastructuring practices, geopolitical imaginaries and critical negotiations—that were evaluated in order to research media infrastructures and argue for the situated analysis of infrastructural labour, geopolitics and critique that frame Internet development. It further argues for the need to explore Internet infrastructure developments in post-socialist Eastern Europe that remain unrepresented in media infrastructures research, despite the rich potential of case studies into the simultaneous emergence of the Internet within new nation states.
{"title":"Situating the Internet as infrastructure: the case of post-socialist Lithuania","authors":"Migle Bareikyte","doi":"10.1080/24701475.2021.2000246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.2000246","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although the Internet is a key global infrastructure, it is still often perceived in an abstract manner by the general public, which tends to disregard how the Internet emerges in different places. In contrast, this paper situates the Internet as infrastructure development in post-socialist Lithuania against the backdrop of multi-sited fieldwork within its telecom industry. Drawing on fieldwork material analysis comprised of qualitative interviews, participatory observation and archival research as well as previous research from media studies, this paper contributes to Internet studies via three conceptual motifs that emerged from fieldwork material—infrastructuring practices, geopolitical imaginaries and critical negotiations—that were evaluated in order to research media infrastructures and argue for the situated analysis of infrastructural labour, geopolitics and critique that frame Internet development. It further argues for the need to explore Internet infrastructure developments in post-socialist Eastern Europe that remain unrepresented in media infrastructures research, despite the rich potential of case studies into the simultaneous emergence of the Internet within new nation states.","PeriodicalId":52252,"journal":{"name":"Internet Histories","volume":"7 1","pages":"161 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47827423","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 : 2021-11-03DOI: 10.1080/24701475.2021.1997179
J. DeCook
Abstract The subreddit r/WatchRedditDie was founded in 2015 after reddit started implementing anti-harassment policies, and positions itself as a “fire alarm for reddit” meant to voyeuristically watch reddit’s impending (symbolic) death. As conversations around platform governance, moderation, and the role of platforms in controlling hate speech become more complex, r/WatchRedditDie and its affiliated subreddits are dedicated in maintaining a version of reddit tolerant of any and all speech, excluding other more vulnerable users from fully participating on the platform. r/WatchReditDie users advocate for no interference in their activities on the platform—meaning that although they rely on the reddit infrastructure to sustain their community, they aim to self-govern to uphold a libertarian and often manipulated interpretation of free expression. Responding to reddit’s evolving policies, they find community with one another by positioning the platform itself as their main antagonist. Through the social worlds framework, I examine the r/WatchRedditDie community’s responses to platform change, bringing up new questions about the possibility of shared governance between platform and user, as well as participatory culture’s promises and perils.
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