[Commlist] CfP ECREA Communication History Workshop “Communication Networks Before and After the Web: Historical and Long-term Perspective”

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*CfP ECREA Communication History Workshop “Communication Networks Before 
and After the Web: Historical and Long-term Perspective”, CERN, 
Switzerland, 5-7 February 2025*

The 2025 ECREA Communication History Workshop will be hosted by CERN 
(Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire / European Council for 
Nuclear Research), where the World Wide Web took its first steps between 
the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s.

This special location inspired us to choose the theme of communication 
networks from long-term and historical perspectives as the key topic of 
the workshop. “Network” is one of digital literacy’s most symbolic and 
obsessively repeated keywords and metaphors. However, communication 
networks are not exclusively digital. From telegraphy to telephony and 
wireless communication in the 19th century, from radio and TV networks 
in the 20th, the concept of network has been used even before the 
Internet and, specifically, the Web. Communication networks seem to 
transform the sense of speed, space, and place, creating new connections 
and erasing others. Networks enable the exchange of communication or 
limit it; new networks are launched and old ones are abandoned or have 
to be maintained.

Interrogating communication and networks from a diachronic perspective 
can be approached from numerous angles: networked communication and its 
infrastructures, communication through networks, and within networks, 
networks of communication, and communication on networks, to name but a 
few. This inquiry should encompass discourses, imaginaries, modalities, 
infrastructures, governance, and many other dimensions. Three main 
historical perspectives on communication networks are suggested:

1. Communication and networks before the digital age:

     Potential topics for exploration include, but are not limited to 
letters, press, telegraph and telephone networks, radio, and TV 
networks, but also other forms of communication networks, through for 
example learned societies or rumor. The legacy of these models, their 
physical or symbolic persistence, their stakeholders, and their 
structure are topics of interest as well as issues of regulation and 
governance.

2. Imaginaries, representations, and narratives related to networks:

     This may include cultural imaginaries and narratives surrounding 
networks in a long-term perspective, their representations in media, the 
controversies that may have arisen through time, utopia, and mythologies 
related to networks and networked societies. A reflection on the word 
per se, its emergence and eventual disappearance, and its metaphorical 
history is also welcomed.

3. Digital communication networks: from socio-technical origins to 
platformization:

     Genesis and evolution of digital networks, communication dynamics 
and changes through digital networks, online communities and their 
modalities of communication, and past discourses and approaches 
surrounding the development of networked communication are only a few 
topics that may be diachronically addressed. The history of social 
network sites, even the disappeared ones or the failed European attempt 
to create alternatives to US platforms, can be considered. The digital 
dimension of networks should always be considered from a historical 
perspective, in line with the focus of the section.

Other transversal topics such as the role of networks in shaping 
communication and community, their impact on societies, or network 
analysis for studying the history of communication may be proposed. The 
study of networks in communication and media studies is also welcome: 
media studies, for example, have often advanced theories about small or 
large networks, their social role, the power of media in creating or 
breaking social networks, the strong or weak ties created by networks, etc.

We invite scholars from various disciplines to freely submit abstracts 
for papers addressing these themes. Submissions should be in English and 
have a clear historical approach. Abstracts of 300 words should be 
submitted no later than 31 July 2024. Proposals for full panels 
(comprising 3 or 4 papers) are also welcome: these should include a 
300-word abstract for each individual presentation and a 150-word 
rationale for the panel. Send abstracts to: *(comnet /at/ usi.ch)*. Authors 
will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection for the conference no 
later than 13 September 2024. Early career scholars and graduate 
students are highly encouraged to submit their work (please indicate if 
the research submitted is part of your thesis or dissertation project).

*Fees and accommodation*: The conference registration fee is 150 Swiss 
francs/about 150 euros (100 Swiss francs/about 100 euros for Ph.D. and 
M.A. students), and participants are asked to cover their travel 
expenses. This fee includes apero at the get-together, coffee breaks, 
and two lunches. A special rate has been arranged for lodging near CERN: 
a single room with a private bathroom for 58.00 Swiss francs. Further 
information will be sent to all the accepted presenters.

*Local organizers*: James Gillies and Jens Vigen (CERN, Geneva), Deborah 
Barcella, Martin Fomasi, and Gabriele Balbi (USI Università della 
Svizzera italiana, Lugano).

*For the section management team*: Christian Schwarzenegger (University 
of Bremen), Valérie Schafer (C2DH, University of Luxembourg), Marie 
Cronqvist (Linköping University).

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