Standard Research Grant: Representational Materialities of Internet Protocols

该项目将侧重于数字环境的代表性物质。它将研究比特在导线中排列的材料特性和结果，数据结构在磁盘上的组织，数据库被安排来支持特定类型的操作，文本和图形表示被设计用于人类的视觉和认知处理。这个项目将通过将我们的互联网作为历史和地理上特定的对象来研究，从而为软件研究的发展领域做出贡献。该项目将扩大我们对网络的理解，从一个设计的对象到一个不断发展的对象。研究结果将反映公众对互联网监管和网络中立的关注和政策。这项研究项目将集中在数字基础设施、互联网协议设计中的代表性考虑，以及构建网络操作的数字约定。该方法将把技术科学的实质性与软件研究这一新兴领域的见解结合起来，记录数字用户和政策制定者的重要性，以及相互竞争的利益和要求。该项目还将包括采访在这些系统的开发中发挥主导作用的人。该项目将通过揭示议定书作为权力、影响和控制的场所的方式，以及它们所体现的政治理性和关系，为反思、干预、重新配置和问责提供机会，从而促进技术人员、社会科学家、政策制定者和监管机构之间的跨学科合作和参与。

This project will focus on representational materialities of the digital environment. It will study the material properties and consequences of the way that bits are arranged in wires, data structures are organized on disks, databases are arranged to support specific kinds of operations, and textual and graphical representations are designed for human visual and cognitive processing. This project will contribute to the developing field of software studies by studying our internet as a historically- and geographically-specific object. The project will broaden our understanding of the network beyond a designed object to an evolving object. Findings will speak to public concerns and policies over internet regulation and network neutrality.This research project will focus on digital infrastructures, the representational considerations in the design of Internet protocols, and the digital conventions that structure network operations. The approach will combine technoscientific materialities with insights from the emerging field of Software Studies to document the significance to digital users and policy-makers, as well as, the competing interests and requirements. The project will also include interviews with people who have played leading roles in the development of these systems. The project will contribute to interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement between technologists, social scientists, policymakers, and regulators by unpacking the ways in which protocols act as sites of power, influence, and control, and the political rationalities and relationalities that they embody, provides opportunities for reflection, intervention, reconfiguration, and accountability.