AIT Forum on the Histories of the Internet: Call for Papers Archives of IT (AIT) is organising a one-day academic-practitioner forum on the Histories of the Internet in January 2024. The forum is designed to: foster more critical, multidisciplinary perspectives on the history of computers, telecommunications, the internet, and related digital media; illuminate how people, … Continue reading A London Forum on Histories of the Internet
Arts and Humanities
Oral Histories of your Family
Oral Histories of your Family: Questions I Failed to Ask With age, I’ve become more aware of the questions I should have asked my parents and grandparents. Like many others, I was interested in my family’s history. For example, I have long treasured my “Aunt Ann’s” family bible with key dates and events recorded in … Continue reading Oral Histories of your Family
The Power of Music – Orchestra Vox at Gatehouse
It is easy to take music for granted when we are surrounded by gadgets that can connect us with any musician or genre of music in an instant. However, last Friday evening at the Gatehouse in Oxford, I saw the power that music can play in a way I should never forget. Gatehouse is a … Continue reading The Power of Music – Orchestra Vox at Gatehouse
New Histories of Information and Media Technologies
New Historical Perspectives on Media and Information Technologies? For decades, students of media, communication, and internet studies have been so focused on the future that the past is too often ignored. Is there a rising interest in the history of media and information technologies and policies? Might more attention to the past hold promise for … Continue reading New Histories of Information and Media Technologies
Digital Kaleidoscope: A Commentary by A. Michael Noll
DIGITAL KALEIDOSCOPE A. Michael Noll February 2, 2023 © A. M. Noll 2023 [The following commentary is authored by A. Michael Noll, and posted with the permission of the author. Michael experimented with many of the technologies of 3D, computational art, and tactile telecommunication in the 1960s and 1970s at Bell Labs. I always find … Continue reading Digital Kaleidoscope: A Commentary by A. Michael Noll
Information Policy: An Unsettled Issue of the Digital Age
Information Policy: Broadening our Perspective on the Issue for the Digital Age There is widespread awareness that we are living in a post-industrial, information society, as we have learned from such seminal thinkers as Daniel Bell (1973). Given such an awareness, it is surprising to that the study of “information policy” is not more prominent. … Continue reading Information Policy: An Unsettled Issue of the Digital Age
Should Elites Get Off Twitter?
Should Elitists Get Off Twitter? An opinion piece in the Financial Times by Janan Ganesh (2022) argued that the real reason to get off Twitter was that it “reeks of low status”. Stay on it long enough and you can “catch” its tone of “domestic mediocrity”. Even elites who use this micro-blogging site should beware … Continue reading Should Elites Get Off Twitter?
Bad Prince Putin
Niccolo Machiavelli was not only one of the ancestorial-fathers of political science, but also remains incredibly relevant and insightful on so many topics of politics and power. In his discourses, advising the prince, he talks about a ‘bad prince’ in his reflections on republics, or popular governments, versus those governed by princes, who are hereditary … Continue reading Bad Prince Putin
Social Intelligence
Social Intelligence: Fascinating progress in a new approach to understanding public issues. In research on governmental and management use of computing in the 1970s, I found that some of the most consequential management information was gained by mining operational data (Dutton and Kraemer 1978; Kraemer, Dutton, and Northrop 1981). For example, there was a complaint … Continue reading Social Intelligence
A. Michael Noll’s Story of Harmon-Knowlton’s ‘The Nude’
HARMON-KNOWLTON’S “THE NUDE” OVERSHADOWS ALL A. Michael Noll August 28, 2022 Copyright © 2022 A. Michael Noll Mosaic Graphics Newspapers have been using a mosaic of dots with gray-scale values to reproduce photos. In 1967, Leon Harmon and Kenneth Knowlton did it, using a digital computer to assign gray-scale values to photos. Harmon and Knowlton … Continue reading A. Michael Noll’s Story of Harmon-Knowlton’s ‘The Nude’