This is the project site for the Cultural History of the Internet course at Johns Hopkins University.
A collective project, it takes a critical approach to internet history, considering a wide spectrum of cultural practices involved in web services and apps, while exploring questions of access and algorithmic bias. It takes an interest in not only the common narratives of innovation, extending from the military infrastructure of ARPANET to the nineties dot-com boom to the emerging internet of things, but also the host of dead ends and lost sites, net ephemera, and once thriving web cultures that risk being forgotten.
The course’s guiding framework is the circuit of culture approach developed by du Gay et al. (1997), which emphasizes the role of meaning in the creation of cultural commodities and outlines five interconnected areas for analyzing any cultural object: “how it is represented, what social identities are associated with it, how it is produced and consumed, and what mechanisms regulate its distribution and use” (3). Significantly, it is an approach that developed in the same cultural moment as the internet was coming into everyday life and might itself be seen as an artifact of that moment.
Taught by Kyle Stine.
News and Broadcasting before the Internet
Technology is involved everywhere nowadays and with the introduction of the internet, receiving news and media is at the touch of a button. Gone are the times when one had to wait for the news or tune into a specific channel on the radio or tv. Now, anyone can read the news through mediums such
Ele.me — Takeaway Before the Internet
Blog1: Representation: Before the Internet Ele.me — one of the Chinese biggest takeaway platforms Alisa Jia According to the 48th Statistical Reports on Internet Development in China released by CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) on August 27th, by the end of June this year, the number of online takeaway users in China was over 469 million, which has increased by 49.76
The Airline Industry Before the Internet
Many of us today do not think twice about the process of going to a new country or maybe even state. What we do is, book a ticket, make a reservation for lodgings, pack our luggage then we’re off. However, was it always that easy? The obvious answer, no, it was not. The technological advances
