CFP: The Web that was: archives, traces, reflections (Amsterdam, June 2019)

A three-day conference, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 19-21, 2019. The third biennial RESAW (Research Infrastructure for the Study of Archived Web Materials) conference. Organized by the University of Amsterdam.

As the first generation of web users goes grey, it’s clear that the internet they remember is no longer around. The early web is now simply another object of nostalgia. Tech anniversaries are a dime a dozen, while once cool digital aesthetics have made several ironic comebacks. All of this reinforces a sense that we’ve left behind a digital history that was as clunky and slow as it was idealistic and naïve.

How can we rethink this relationship to the web’s past and the past web? This question is crucial today as the open web continues to lose ground to platforms and apps. How can this history be reconstructed and re-evaluated, and how are web archives and web histories impacted by technological change? What do traditional problems of preservation and historiography look like at scale? And what stories capture the diverse transformations and continuities that mark nearly 30 years of web history?

There is of course no single web history, materially or conceptually speaking. There is instead a politics of archives, technologies and discourses that needs to be uncovered. How can we expand our view of web history beyond Silicon Valley and celebrated cases? And how can we reveal the technological, social and economic contexts that have shaped not just the present web, but how we access its past? What role do archives play in uncovering the histories of the web, platforms and apps, as well as their production and usage contexts?

This conference aims to bring together scholars, archivists and artists interested in preserving, portraying and otherwise engaging with the web that was. In addition to paper submissions, we invite proposals for audiovisual installations, posters, software demos, or other media that connects to the conference themes.

Submissions in the form of an abstract may relate to, but are not limited by, the following topics:

* Web and internet histories
* Historicizing the web and digital culture
* Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and critiquing periodizations
* Past futures and paths not taken
* Platformization and the changing structure of the web
* Social imaginaries of the early web
* Archives and access
* Research methods for studying the archived web
* Methods for platform and app histories
* Ethics of (studying) web archives
* Technicity of web archives
* Software histories
* Archived audiences and histories of internet use
* Identity, intersectionality and web history
* Digital activism and web history
* Histories of net criticism
* Media industries and their online histories
* Web histories elsewhere: forgotten and marginalized web cultures
* Realtime, time travel and other web temporalities
* Future histories and the archive of tomorrow

Deadline for submission is 19 October 2018.

See the website of the conference

CfP: “Media history for the future: Web Archaeology”

Call for Submissions special issue TMG—Journal for Media History

Media historians increasingly have to deal with the fact that the object of their study or their historical sources only exist in digital form. Since the explosive growth of the internet in the 1980s and the web in the nineties, reconstructing internet history or histories depending on internet-based media are completely dependent on what is archived or still accessible. Most born digital source materials have never been stored in a sustainable way and at most are preserved by chance in forgotten corners of the web or on obsolete digital storage formats. The web historians of the future must therefore learn to “dig” in online sources to what is left of an antique website, an online video forum or a virtual media community. The found artifacts must then be reconstructed. In this way insight into the operation, use and meaning of the object can be acquired and the past can be reconstructed and interpreted. The need for exploring new tools and new digital methods, including source criticism, is gaining in importance, also for media historians. In addition, the worldwide web itself is increasingly becoming a dynamic archive in which sources appear and quickly disappear: what opportunities are there for research and what should we be prepared for in the near future?

In order to gain a better insight into the recent developments of web archaeology and web history, TMG asks for this theme issue contributions on the following topics and approaches:

• Theoretical and concrete explorations of web archeology as a method
• How can we use the web / digital-born data as a source for media-historical research?
• What historical transformations have taken place on the internet and the web and how can we period it?
• What are the limitations and possibilities in using the web as a dynamic archive?

Preferably, authors focus on topics related to the Dutch / Flemish media and communication history, but TMG is also open to international contributions.

This special TMG issue will be edited by dr. Susan Aasman (TMG), in collaboration with guest editors dr. Kees Teszelszky (Conservator digital collections KB) and Tjarda de Haan (Head of the Atria knowledge institute). Proposals (about 300 words) for peer-reviewed articles (6000-8000 words) can be submitted to Susan Aasman (s.i.aasman@rug.nl) no later than 30 September 2018. It is also possible to submit a proposal for a (non-peer reviewed) review of tools and methods for web historical research or preservation of digital media heritage. The manuscript of the article is expected before Monday 3 December 2018.

read more

AAC French Journal for Media Research: “Le web 2.0 : lieux de perception des transformations des sociétés”

Coordination : Léda Mansour, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France

Ce numéro accueille des études de cas particuliers dans le web, analysant et décrivant des phénomènes peu ordinaires et nouveaux afin de saisir les transformations des sociétés. Le choix du web comme lieu de perception des transformations est fortement lié à sa capacité à représenter un terrain de recherche rempli de sources plurielles, diverses et parfois opposées en termes sociologiques.

Lire la suite de l’appel et les modalités de soumission

Call for Papers for Internet Histories: The 90s as a turning decade for Internet and the Web

This call for papers aims to revisit the history of Internet and the Web within a specific decade that coincides with the Web’s availability for the general public: the 1990s.
How did the course of Internet History change in the 90s? Which continuities and turns, tensions and debates emerged within the Internet community, within digital communities, and more generally within society at large? How can we map the Internet and the Web of the Nineties? Who were the key actors and more hidden figures of their adoption and massification? How can we characterize the digital cultures of the 1990s and reconstruct and revisit them? What did Web browsing meant for Internet users of the Nineties? How can we explain nostalgia today for this past Web?

We hope to explore these questions and many others in this special issue, through global, transnational, national, regional and local histories.

Suggested topics:

  • The mass diffusion of the Internet: its rhythms, patterns, issues, actors, limits
  • The emergence of the World Wide Web and the paths to the Web in the 90s
  • The heritage of previous times, models, projects and achievements in Internet history
  • “Eternal September” and other newcomers on the Internet and/or on the Web
  • The communication around the Internet and the Web (in media, advertisements, political or economic discourses, etc.) and their socialisation
  • The Internet’s commercial turn
  • The history of ISPs and of content providers
  • History of 90s websites and online communities
  • The controversies and debates that involved the Internet and Web during the 90s
  • The Web of the 90s and its relationship with convergent media dynamics/histories of the period (e.g. television, telecommunications, print…)
  • The topic of the Internet and the Web versus “older media” (in press, TV, radio, online)
  • The dot-com bubble
  • Digital archeology and the reconstruction of digital communities and vanished spaces
  • Digital tools and digital humanities for reconstructing and analysing the Web of the 90s
  • Discussions on the place and on the 90s turn within the history of the Internet and the Web (realities, limits, critics…)
  • The nostalgia for the past of the Internet and Web of the 90s

Of course, we encourage and welcome other topics and perspectives on the 90s as a turning decade for Internet and the Web.

 Submissions

The proposals are to be submitted to

benjaminthierry@gmail.com

valerieschafer@wanadoo.fr

explicitly mentioning CFP 90s

They need to fit on one page, detail an explicit angle of analysis and outline, and integrate a short bibliography.

Selected authors will be invited to submit then a full paper through the editorial system, which will undergo full peer review and will determine acceptance of papers for publication.

Calendar

Deadline for the submission of proposals: September 20th 2017

Notification of proposal acceptance: October 1st 2017

Submissions of the full paper (6000-8000 words): March 1st 2018

Feedback based on reviews: April 20th 2018

Deadline for Revisions: June 20th 2018

Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society is an international, inter-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal concerned with research on the cultural, social, political and technological histories of the internet and associated digital cultures.

More information on the journal

Instructions for Authors 

Should you have any questions regarding this CfP, please feel free to contact us: benjaminthierry@gmail.com ; valerieschafer@wanadoo.fr

 

AAC revue Temporalités : Réseaux sociaux et temporalités

 

 

Dossier coordonné par Claire Bidart (LEST UMR 7317, CNRS, AMU) et Michel Grossetti (LISST UMR 5193, CNRS, UT2J)

Comment évoluent des systèmes relationnels ? Comment rendre compte des dynamiques complexes qui les animent ? Un réseau, en effet, est composé d’entités et de relations entre ces entités, et il forme un système d’ensemble qui lui aussi évolue dans sa composition et sa structure. Entités, relations et structure sont engagées dans des mouvements différents. S’agissant de réseaux sociaux, connectant ici des entités sociales – individus, organisations, activités, produits… (Degenne et Forsé, 2004) –, quelles temporalités, sociales elles aussi, sont à l’œuvre sur leurs mouvements et leurs évolutions?

Diverses disciplines des sciences sociales ont travaillé sur ces questions : la sociologie, l’histoire, l’économie, la géographie, la science politique, la science de gestion… La physique et l’informatique contribuent elles aussi à l’identification de dynamiques au sein de systèmes sociaux, le plus souvent à partir de « big data ».

En restant focalisé ici sur les réseaux sociaux, ce numéro de Temporalités entend rassembler des travaux s’appliquant à examiner les temporalités impliquées dans les évolutions des systèmes relationnels.

Lire la suite de l’appel sur Calenda

Calendrier

Réception des propositions jusqu’au : 15 septembre 2017
Réponse des coordinateurs : 15 octobre 2017
Réception des articles : 15 décembre 2017
Retour des expertises des évaluateurs : 1er février 2018
Version révisée : 2 avril 2018
Sortie du numéro : 15 juin 2018

Call For Papers: ARPANET (1969-2019)

Map of the Arpanet 1973

Camille Paloque-Berges & Valérie Schafer (ed.)

Special issue of Internet Histories. Digital Technology, Culture and Society.

This call for papers aims at revisiting the history of ARPANET, its genesis, development, heritage, memories and the writing of its history 50 years after the first four nodes came into service.

ARPANET’s story is today part of the Internet’s official heritage, as a first crucial step in its development. Seminal research, such as Janet Abbate’s Inventing the Internet (1999) or Alexandre Serres’ Aux sources d’Internet: l’émergence d’ARPANET (2000) has extensively covered its history. However, the 50th anniversary of ARPANET provides an occasion to reflect on existing histories, to open the debate to new perspectives and approaches.

What have these pioneering researchers provided and what lessons have they taught us in terms of studying the history of computer networks? When considering ARPANET as a first step towards the Internet: how did this determine – and is still determining – our current understanding of the Internet and of the ARPANET? What other chronologies and territories involving the ARPANET can be advanced? What is left to explore and discover in the ARPANET’s history? If the ARPANET is dead today, are its heritage and spirit still alive and if so, how?

Suggested topics:

  • The ARPANET’s inspirations: previous concepts, models, theories, technologies
  • Development of computer networks from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s: society, culture, politics and economics in the ARPANET’s times (from a local, national and international perspective)
  • The place of ARPANET in the history of ARPA/DARPA or funding agencies more generally
  • The place of ARPANET within the history of military networks
  • Trajectories of ARPANET’s developments: from experiments to achievements, through mistakes and failures
  • ARPANET’s communities: from developers to users
  • ARPANET’s hardware and software within the history of computers and computing
  • Famous and less-known protagonists or witnesses of ARPANET
  • Spaces, places, maps, territories, geographies, and geopolitics of ARPANET
  • Communicating with, through, and about ARPANET
  • ARPANET as a model: reception and influence on other networks and/or in other countries
  • ARPANET’s governance and architecture
  • ARPANET and infrastructures for digital information
  • ARPANET’s cultures: perimeters, specificities, limits …
  • The history of networks shaping collaborative work
  • Writing ARPANET’s history: critical historiography, methodology, epistemological issues
  • New discoveries in the history of ARPANET
  • ARPANET’s heritage in the present Internet and digital cultures

Of course, we encourage and welcome other topics and perspectives on ARPANET’s history too.

 Submissions

The proposals are to be submitted to

camillepaloqueberges@gmail.com

valerieschafer@wanadoo.fr

explicitly mentioning CFP ARPANET.

They need to fit in one page, detail an explicit angle of analysis and outline, and integrate a short bibliography.

Successful authors will be invited to submit then a full paper through the editorial system, which will undergo full peer review and will determine acceptance of papers for publication.

Calendar

Deadline for the submission of proposals: October 15th 2017

Notification of proposal acceptance: November 15th 2017

Submissions of the full paper (6000-8000 words): April 15th 2018

Feedback based on reviews: June 30th 2018

Deadline for Revisions: October 15th 2018

Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society is an international, interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal concerned with research on the cultural, social, political and technological histories of the internet and associated digital cultures.

More information on the journal can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rint20

Instructions for Authors are available at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rint20#Word_limits

Should you have any questions regarding this CfP, please feel free to contact us:

camillepaloqueberges@gmail.com

valerieschafer@wanadoo.fr

 

CfP4th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing

4-7 Oct 2017 Brno (Czech Republic)

Call for papers

voir l’appel complet

(…) For HaPoC 2017 we welcome contributions from logicians, philosophers and historians of computing as well as from philosophically aware computer scientists and mathematicians. We also invite contributions on the use of computers in art. As HaPoC conferences aim to provide a platform for interdisciplinary discussions among researchers, contributions stimulating such discussions are preferable. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • History of computation (computational systems, machines, mechanized reasoning, algorithms and programs, communities of computing and their paradigms,…)
  • Foundational issues in computer science and computability (models of computability, Church-Turing thesis, formal systems for distributed, cloud and secure computing, semantic theories of programming languages, …)
  • Philosophy of computing (computer as brain / mind, epistemological issues, …)
  • Computation in the sciences (computer experiments and simulations, computer-aided systems for teaching and research, …)
  • Computer and the arts (temporality in digital art; narration in interactive art work, speculative software, programming as a deferred action, computing and affect, performativity of code, eristic of HCI, …)

NB: The conference will be preceded by a special workshop on the reception of Hilbert’s axiomatic method in Eastern Europe on 3 October 2017, organized by Mate Szabó (see the link in the left column for more details).

Accompanying cultural programme will include: the remake of the 1968 Brno exhibition Computer Graphic(featuring Frieder Nake and others), the first computer art exhibition in Eastern Europe, preceding Cybernetic Serendipity by several months, Live coding performance (inspired by the Exhibition Computer Graphic), the concert Exposition of New Music (contemporary music),  and field recordings of Brno (student project).

A selection of revised contributions to the Conference will be published in a Special Issue of Philosophy & Technology (Springer).

CfP : Media History and Democracy (journal Media and Communication)

Deadline for Abstracts: 30 June 2017
Deadline for Submissions: 30 September 2017
Publication of the Issue: March 2018

The journal Media and Communication hereby announces a thematic issue (to be published in 2018) dedicated to the topic of media history and democracy. Democracy, in its many guises, has long been an influential concern for media historians. The emphasis on democracy in this thematic issue is intended to link up with media histories that take on the intersection of democracy and media as understood through any one of a number of lenses. The issue of democracy brings this thematic issue in contact with numerous approaches to media history. Authors will find connections to be made between democracy and concerns for: history of technology, social history, cultural history, political history, the history of social networks, intellectual history, and more. Democracy need not be conceptualized as a formal political system for this thematic issue, and many authors may find it fruitful to consider the multifarious aspects and meanings of democracy as they reflect on how they might draft a submission to this thematic issue. Media and Communication is an international journal, and we are particularly interested in programming a thematic issue that features historical scholarship from around the world, including manuscripts that address transnational communication flows. This thematic issue of Media and Communication would be a good match for articles addressing the following topics:

– The history of democratic ideals in the development of media technology;
– Considerations of democratic formations as they relate to journalism history and historical understandings of the role of journalism;
– Histories of media as they relate to political activism;
– The history of alternative and independent media outlets as they relate to democratic processes;
– The history of public service broadcasting and its applications worldwide or transnationally;
– Histories of media reform movements;
– Treatments of the history of literacy and its political meanings;
– Internet histories as they relate to citizenship or democracy;
– The historical roles of interpersonal communication and social networks as they relate to democracy;
– The history of media policies and regulation designed to arrange for (or thwart) democratic communication;
– Historical themes concerning the relationship between capitalism and democracy.
Continuer la lecture

AAC Unix en Europe : entre innovation, diffusion et héritage

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris – 19 Octobre 2017

 Le système Unix est né dans les années 1970 à la croisée du monde industriel (laboratoire de R&D chez AT&T) et du monde scientifique (réseau de l’Université de Berkeley), et s’est rapidement démarqué par une adoption internationale dans les milieux de la recherche en informatique. Le succès d’Unix, d’abord implémenté sur les mini-ordinateurs, avant de devenir plus largement compatible avec le reste du parc informatique, a été encouragé par ses qualités de système ouvert, multi-utilisateur et multitâche permettant l’expérimentation logicielle. Dans le contexte européen, en particulier en France, comment cette innovation américaine a-t-elle été diffusée, transposée, et adaptée ? Pourquoi Unix a-t-il intéressé les milieux informatiques européens, et pourquoi continue-t-il aujourd’hui de les intéresser ? Cela suppose une appropriation et une construction d’une culture Unix consolidée, qui perdure et constitue un héritage dans les mémoires de ces milieux, en sus de la longue et complexe histoire de ses versions. La mémoire des utilisateurs Unix est vive, portée très tôt par des enquêtes dans les milieux de la recherche et du développement (Salus, 1994), ainsi qu’une pratique de sauvegarde patrimoniale avancée (Toomey, 2010). Le système est un référent important dans l’histoire de l’informatique, en particulier dans le champ des logiciels libres (Kelty, 2008) et des réseaux (Paloque-Berges, 2017) et dans la philosophie des langages (Mélès, 2013).

Afin d’explorer la variété de ces questions, ce colloque s’adresse aux chercheurs en sciences sociales, historiens, philosophes, conservateurs du patrimoine intéressés par l’histoire d’Unix et des systèmes et logiciels ouverts. Ce colloque s’ouvre également plus largement à la communauté d’acteurs et témoins impliquée dans les réflexions autour d’Unix et la transmission de sa mémoire. Nous souhaitons, dans ce colloque, discuter et éclairer plusieurs aspects du développement d’Unix en Europe et à l’international, dans ses dimensions historiques et sociologiques, philosophiques et épistémologiques, patrimoniales – et cela selon 3 axes prioritaires.

Continuer la lecture

AAC : Le temps long des réseaux sociaux numériques

Dossier pour Le Temps des Médias. Revue historique (numéro 31, parution en 2018)

Le temps long des réseaux sociaux numériques
Coordonné par
Frédéric Clavert, Martin Grandjean et Cécile Méadel

Le 15 janvier 2009, un avion de l’US Airways amerrit en urgence au large de New York. Parmi les passagers et l’équipe de bord, tous sains et saufs, plusieurs ont, depuis les bateaux de secours, publié leurs photographies sur Twitter ou Flickr. Ainsi les membres de ces plateformes « sociales » en ligne ont-ils pu être informés de l’événement avant que presse et télévision ne le relatent.

Dans ce cas symbolique, les réseaux sociaux numériques ont favorisé la diffusion d’informations. Leur orientation de plus en plus affirmée vers la circulation de l’information transforme ces réseaux en médias, avec des moyens et une infrastructure techniques (Internet, le web et les réseaux sociaux numériques eux-mêmes) qui permettent à leurs membres de participer non seulement à la diffusion mais également à la création et à la mise en forme de ces informations.

Les aspects massifs des réseaux sociaux numériques en ligne – Facebook compte 1,5 milliard d’« utilisateurs » – d’une part et la rapidité de circulation de l’information que Dominique Boullier a décrit comme des « vibrations » intenses et brèves d’autre part poussent des utilisateurs et observateurs de ces plateformes à verser dans le vocabulaire révolutionnaire, coutumier des entreprises de nouvelles technologies. Si la (relative) nouveauté des technologies utilisées par les réseaux sociaux numériques est bien documentée, celle, souvent implicitement considérée comme évidente, des pratiques des utilisateurs/acteurs – réseaux, collectifs ou communautés – de ces services dans les modes d’émergence et de circulation de l’information l’est moins.

Ce dossier du Temps des médias souhaite mettre au centre de sa démarche une série de questionnements touchant à l’interaction entre (nouvelles) technologies, rythmes ou formats de l’information et (nouveaux) acteurs. Comment et sous quelles conditions l’émergence de nouvelles technologies ou la transformation de technologies existantes agissent-elles sur les rythmes de l’information et font-elles apparaître de nouveaux acteurs ? Si le cas des réseaux sociaux numériques est considéré comme emblématique de nouveaux modèles de production et de circulation des informations, ce dossier s’appuiera pour répondre à ces questions sur une démarche qui accordera une attention particulière aux approches diachroniques en interrogeant d’autres médias, d’autres technologies, d’autres réseaux, d’autres communautés d’hier et aujourd’hui. À titre d’exemple, nous pouvons évoquer le rôle de l’invention et, surtout, du perfectionnement de l’imprimerie conjugué au rôle de membres du clergé dans la diffusion des 95 thèses de Martin Luther qui, d’après Elizabeth Eisenstein, a pu atteindre 300 000 personnes en trois ans.

Cette approche diachronique nous permettra de réintroduire le temps long dans l’étude des réseaux sociaux numériques, sans nécessairement négliger des temporalités plus courtes.

Il s’agira donc d’analyser des moments de transformation et/ou d’accélération de la circulation de l’information, avec production massive ou significative (relativement à la configuration technologique et culturelle d’une époque) de nouvelles, à des moments où les destinataires de l’information collaborent ou participent à son élaboration ou à sa circulation, à des moments où ces mutations exercent un rôle plus ou moins déterminant dans les modes de fonctionnement des médias. Dans quelle mesure l’émergence d’une technique a-t-elle déjà favorisé la mise en place de médias dits sociaux ? L’histoire d’Internet et surtout celle du web devront également être prises en compte, tout comme la place et le rôle de Facebook ou Twitter. Les années 2000 – l’éclatement de la bulle spéculative des « dotcom » suivie de l’émergence de la notion de web 2.0 – sont empreintes d’une narration de la rupture lorsque l’on parle, notamment, du web. Cette rupture-là devra aussi être discutée, non nécessairement pour la mettre en cause, mais aussi pour, comparée au temps long, en faire émerger les principales caractéristiques.

Modalités pratiques

Les propositions devront être adressées à frederic.clavert@unil.ch avant le 15 juin 2017 (titre, mots-clés, résumé en 3 000 signes maximum, affiliation) ; les réponses seront adressées aux auteurs au plus tard dans la première quinzaine de juillet. Les articles (35 000 signes) devront être remis le 31 octobre 2017 pour expertise et relecture. La publication est prévue pour le mois de septembre 2018.

Coordinateurs du numéro

Frédéric Clavert, frederic.clavert@unil.ch

Martin Grandjean, martin.grandjean@unil.ch

Cécile Méadel, cecile.meadel@u-paris2.fr