[ecrea] Web25 -- Special issue of New Media & Society on the Web’s first 25 years

Call for papers

Web25
Special issue of New Media & Society on the Web’s first 25 years


In August 2016 the World Wide Web can celebrate its 25th anniversary. Or 
can it?

No doubt that the World Wide Web — or simply: the Web — has played an 
important role in the communicative infrastructure of most societies 
since the beginning of the 1990s, but when did the Web actually start? 
And how has the Web developed? These are the two main areas of study 
that this special issue intends to investigate.

The start of the Web
As with any other new media form it is difficult to determine in a clear 
cut manner when it was invented. Was it the first time it was thought 
of? Or when it was made publicly or commercially accessible? Or? In the 
case of the Web its 25th anniversary was widely celebrated in March 
2014, thus celebrating that Tim Berners-Lee circulated his "Information 
Management: A Proposal" in 1989. But one could also maintain that the 
Web only started when it was named "WorldWideWeb" (October 1990), when 
the first Web server and the first Web page were created (November 
1990), or when the WWW software was made available on the net, posted on 
alt.hypertext (August 1991) (cf. http://www.w3.org/History.html). Or 
maybe the Web started years before, with Paul Otlet’s Mundaneum in the 
beginning of the 20th century, with Vannevar Bush’s ideas about the 
Memex in 1945, or with the invention of HyperCard in the late 1980
s? These questions all revolve around underlaying questions such as 
”what is a start?” — ”when is something ’new’”? — ”and to what extent is 
it relevant to ask for clear cut dates”? This is one set of issues 
related to the history of the Web that this special issue of New Media & 
Society intends to explore and question.

The historical development of the Web
Despite the fact that it can be difficult — and interesting — to 
investigate the beginning of the Web, the Web was invented after all, 
and it has been with us for approximately 25 years now. What has it 
looked like, and how has it been used? Who and what has affected its 
development? These are some of the general questions regarding the 
history of the Web, but they can be narrowed and detailed in a number of 
ways, for instance by focusing on specific areas of society — politics, 
culture, news, business, etc. — on specific demographic groups, on 
different regions on the globe, on the technical infrastructure, or on 
software. In addition, the historical development of the Web not only 
calls for empirical studies, historiographical issues are also highly 
relevant to address, that is theoretical and methodological topics 
related to the writing of the histories of the Web. The historical 
development of the Web as well as historiographical questions related to 
the history
of the Web constitute the second area of interest for this special issue 
of New Media & Society.

Papers must address one of these two areas of study regarding the Web — 
or they may address both, and even focus on their interplay — as well as 
they must adopt a historical approach.

With a view to sparking discussion, the point of departure of the 
special issue is that what should be celebrated is the date when the Web 
was made publicly availabe, that is August 1991 — but contributors are 
welcome to question this.


Literature
- Banks, M.A. (2008). On the Way to the Web: The secret History of the 
Internet and its Founders. Berkeley: Apress.
- Berners-Lee, T. (1999). Weaving the Web: The Past, Present and Future 
of the World Wide Web by its Inventor. London: Orion.
- Brunton, F. (2013). Spam: A shadow History of the Internet. Cambridge, 
Mass.: MIT Press.
- Brügger, N. (Ed.) (2010). Web History. New York: Peter Lang.
- Burns, M. & Brügger, N. (Eds.) (2012). Histories of Public Service 
Broadcasters on the Web. New York: Peter Lang.
- Carey, J. & Elton, M.C.J. (2010). When Media are New: Understanding 
the Dynamics of New Media Adoption and Use. Ann Arbor: The University of 
Michigan Press.
- Gillies, J. & R. Cailliau. (2000). How the Web was Born: The Story of 
the World Wide Web. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gitelman, L. (2006). Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data 
of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- Park, D.W., Jankowski, N.W. & Jones, S. (2011). The long History of 
New Media: Technology, Historiography, and contextualizing Newness. New 
York: Peter Lang.
- Poole, H.W. (Ed.) (2005). The Internet: A historical Encyclopedia. 
Santa Barbara, CA.


Possible topics
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

·      Broad as well as specific histories of the development of the 
Web, focusing on, for?instance, technology, graphic design, culture, 
politics, etc.
·      The history of sharing syndication, or viral spread
·      The development of blogs and microblogs
·      The history of one website, or types of websites
·      Web elements transcending more websites, for instance the use of 
images, sound, or video on specific types of websites (news, social 
network sites, other)
·      The Web’s interplay with traditional media (books, newspapers, 
film, radio, television)
·      The big trends, developments of entire national Webs, or of the 
entire Web
·      The history of spam, or of hacking
·      The role of familar, but often unaknowledged Web features such as 
search engines, browsers, and plugins
·      The use of the Web as a historical source, for instance archived Web
·      The history of events on the Web, such as political elections, 
catastrophies, sports events, etc.
·      What is ’new’? — intersections of ’old’ and ’new’ on the Web
·      The gouvernance of the Web (on a global, regional, or national scale)
·      Defining moments and events on the Web, regarding inventions as 
well as use
·      Social networking sites
·      The need for and use of digitally supported methods and digital 
analytical tools
·      The history of the Web in the larger framework of cultural history


Abstract and time schedule
Please email a 700 word abstract proposal, along with a short author 
biography, no later than 15 November 2014 to (nb /at/ dac.au.dk).

On the basis of these abstracts invitations to submit articles will be 
sent out no later than begin January 2015.

Final selected articles will be due 1 June 2015 and will undergo peer 
review following the usual procedures of New Media & Society. Invitation 
to submit a full article does not therefore guarantee acceptance into 
the special issue. The special issue will be published in 2016.

The special issue is edited by Niels Brügger, the Centre for Internet 
Studies, and NetLab, Aarhus University, Denmark, (nb /at/ dac.au.dk).

This call for articles can be found in pdf format at 
http://imv.au.dk/~nb/Web25_call_nms.pdf. Please forward as appropriate 
to interested parties.




——————————————————————————————
FIRST CALL 'Web Archives as scholarly Sources: Issues, Practices and 
Perspectives', 8-10 June 2015. Read full call at 
http://resaw.eu/events/international-conference-aarhus-june-2015/


LATEST INTERVIEWS
"Inside the Struggle to Preserve the World's Data”, Newsweek, July 2014, 
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/inside-struggle-preserve-worlds-data-257020.html?ynano

"How to preserve the web’s past for the future”, Financial Times, April 
2014, 
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d87a33d8-c0a0-11e3-8578-00144feabdc0.html#axzz37cXx9xdw


LATEST PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS

August 2013
Web historiography and Internet Studies: Challenges and perspectives, 
New Media & Society, 15(5), 752-764
Read more: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/5/752.abstract

June 2013
Historical Network Analysis of the Web, Social Science Computer Review, 
31(3), 306-321
Read more: http://ssc.sagepub.com/content/31/3/306.abstract

March 2013
The Web and Digital Humanities: Theoretical and Methodological Concerns 
(w. N.O. Finnemann), Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 57(1), 66-80
Read more: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838151.2012.761699



NIELS BRÜGGER, Associate Professor, PhD
Head of the Centre for Internet Studies and of NetLab
Department of Aesthetics and Communication
Aarhus University
Helsingforsgade 14, building 5347, room 236
8200 Aarhus N
Denmark

E-mail                             (nb /at/ dac.au.dk)
Webpage                       http://imv.au.dk/~nb



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