Humlab Talk: Web history, and the question of sources

Niels Brügger, Professor in Media Studies, Aarhus University

Abstract: This presentation debates some of the challenges when writing our recent history of digital media, in this case the World Wide Web. Focus is on how to write the history of a national web, including how to provide the needed sources, be that found sources, or ‘created’ sources such as oral history. The presentation illustrates and discusses some of the challenges through a case: the ongoing research project ‘The history of the Danish web in the 1990ies’. First, the project is introduced, then I will zoom in on challenges related to the use of two examples of sources: oral histories with key individuals (website holders, content creators, web users, etc.), and the reconstruction of the historical lists of existing websites on the Top-Level domain .dk year by year, which can be said to set the outer limits for what constitutes ‘the Danish web’.

This talk is given within the framework of a special focus on the focus area Digital Practices with financial support from the Faculty of Humanities' seed money