User:Roelroscama/thesis

Hello World

compilation of thoughts from first year

Structure draft

Like many others of my generation I grew up alongside of internet

For a long time it was therefor an unquestioned part of my life.

Following the media I believed it was a special thing.

Believed it would make society become freer, smarter and more democratic.

Because of the possibility to have access to all the knowledge, people would be more independent

Censorship, oppresion and dogmatism would be a thing of the past.

In short I had a very utopian vision for this technology

During the course of my studies, reflecting on the internet more critically, I noticed that the internet can be just as much if not more the opposite of that utopian vision. It can also be a dystopian technology. This results in a paradoxical experience of the net that I want to understand. I seek to examine where this perceived paradox originates from, and whether it is a paradox at all.

In the first chapter of the thesis I will describe these utopian notions and explain their origin and subsequent transformation to mainstream views. I will do this following Fred Turnet's From Counterculture to Cyberculture, using that I will describe how Steward Brand and the Whole Earth network adapted and promoted a utopian view of computer and networking technologies. From the Whole Earth Network came Wired magazine that in the 90's projected these utopian notions on the then emerging Internet, this subsequently became the mainstream view on the internet that was adopted both by politics and the general public. Then borrowing Evgeny Morozov's concept of 'internet-epochalism' I will argue that the constant reinforcement by Silicon Valley pundits of, on the one hand, the uniqueness and radical newness of internetworking technologies and on the other hand its portrayal as an autonomous force, lead to a popular account of the internet's history that starts and exists in what could be described as more or less a historical vacuum. This in turn has facilitated a predominantly positive and optimistic narrative surrounding the effects of computing and networking technologies on societies and individuals, which has obscured more critical understandings of those technologies by mainstream audiences.

So if the popular account of the history of the internet exists in a historical vacuum that obfuscates more critical understandings of these technologies, what would then be a more inclusive history of the internet - one that would also facilitate more 'dystopic' readings of the internetworking technologies? In chapter two I will propose a reading of history that considers the internet not, as mainstream has it, a unique technology with it's origins in the American Counter-culture of the 60's and 70's, but rather as the latest iteration of (electric/digital)telecommunications technologies that first see the world in the mid-19th century. Doing so would reframe the internet as a technology in terms of the monopolies, geopolitics, empire and colonialism that shaped telecommunications throughout much of the 19th century. By examining mainly the physical infrastructures of telecommunications technologies I will argue that the same set of interests have permeated and the same power structures have been maintained and reinforced much throughout the history of telecommunications. To show this I will tell the story of the development of telecommunications in both the United States of American and in Great Britain, with a focus on the companies that have built and maintained telecommunication infrastructures and that in some form or another continue to exist to this day.

Chapter three will deal with the consequences and implications of a history as proposed in chapter two. I will argue that it will help the reader better understand the tremendous advantage that some states and companies have had over others to this day and explain the distribution of power on, and over the network, not solely as a result of the merit of individual technologists and visionaries from Silicon Valley, but rather as much as the result centuries of geopolitics, empire and colonialism. As an example of the impact that these historical structures have on the internet I will consider the internet's hallmark protocol, the tcp/ip, and how even the supposed neutral and decentralized nature of this protocol is affected by the historical development of infrastructure. Another example of the geopolitical nature of the internet has been in the news prominently during from the summer of 2013 on, the mass surveillance leaks by Edward Snowden. The leaks serve as a good example on how geopolitics and historical advantages are enjoyed by the United States and Great Britain in their surveillance practices. Having given these two examples I will argue a reconsideration of the utopian notions is necessary.

Chapter four will deal with the limitations and potential critiques against viewing the internet as a mere iteration of telecommunications technology. Is it not reading history backwards? Is this not too much a deterministic view? Although in many ways the Internet continues several long-standing characteristics of communications technologies, notably the rapid formation of monopolies/oligopolies and it's applications in international politics and surveillance, it does also contain the potential for realizing some of the utopian ideas. I will mention some ways in which one could imagine networks that take into account the role of infrastructure and offer empowerment to people. For example peer to peer urban wireless networks like the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network. However, using the technologies to deal with the negative implications of those same technologies is also troubling.

ch1

mainstream mythologies - a list of the californian myths and expectations

- how these became mainstream narratives surrounding the internet and related computing technologies, through advertising, lobbying from wired magazine and the whole earth group etc

-the thinking of mcluhan, buckminster fuller as the root for our way of talking about (this) technology intrinsically having certain positive properties

internet mythology starts in 60's 70's and is isolated from world history evgeny morozov's concept of epochalism to explain this

ch2

telegraph, telephone, teletype overview of the development of these telecoms technologies

Telegraph 1838 – 1881/1914

-telegraph started information age and informational governmentality, so it is a good start for the history of (electronic)telecommunications

- essentially the internet with lower baud-rate (victorian internet)

-I describe both the development in uk and us, because these are the most important countries

- within 30 years of morse demonstrating the telegraph it had become a tool for colonialism in GB and monopoly in US and the infrastructure was laid out accordingly.

- the rise of both the Western Union Telegraph company and the Eastern Telegraph Company

- the concept of 'natural monopoly'

- the utopian vs dystopian visions at the time (telegraph as a tool for international dialogue, telegraph as a tool to control and surveil mainly factory workers)

Telephone 1881/1914 - 1945 -development of telegraph and telephone went side by side in US > telegraph companies get swallowed by telephone companies. The Bell Company monopoly expands

Literature overview so far

Blum, A. (2013). Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet Paperback. Ecco.

Galloway, A. R. (2006). Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization. The MIT Press.

Headrick, D. R., & Griset, P. (2001). Submarine Telegraph Cables: Business and Politics, 1838-1939.

Malecki, E. J. (2002). The Economic Geography of the Internet’s Infrastructure. Clark University.

Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. PublicAffairs.

Nye, D. E. (2014). Shaping Communication Networks: Telegraph, Telephone, Computer. The New School.

Richard Barbrook, A. C. The Californian Ideology.

Standage, T. (2007). The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers. Bloomsbury USA.

Turner, F. (2006). From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. University of Chicago Press.

Wallsten, S. (2005). Returning to Victorian Competition, Ownership, and Regulation: An Empirical Study of European Telecommunications at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press.