18 - Histoire de l’Internet, l’Internet dans l’histoire
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Janet ABBATE
Internet History Through an STS Lens
Le Temps des médias n°18, Printemps 2012, p. 170-180.
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The Internet as a medium challenges historians to reconsider fundamental assumptions about the boundaries between human and non-human, infrastructure and culture, technology and society. Concepts from science and technology studies (STS) can provide models for problematizing traditional media categories and for seeing the connections between technology and culture. The first set of examples traces how computers and the Internet have blurred the boundary between infrastructure and culture : shared literary visions have inspired real-life computer systems, while communications hardware has taken on new meaning for self-expression. The second set of examples analyzes how the behaviors and goals of human and non-human actors have become inseparable in many online environments. The term is suggested to describe this phenomenon.