Standard Research Grant: Representational Materialities of Internet Protocols

该项目将重点关注数字环境的具象性。它将研究材料的性质和结果，比特在电线中排列，数据结构在磁盘上组织，数据库的排列以支持特定类型的操作，以及为人类视觉和认知处理而设计的文本和图形表示。该项目将通过研究我们的互联网作为一个历史和地理特定对象，为软件研究的发展领域做出贡献。这个项目将把我们对网络的理解从一个设计对象扩展到一个不断发展的对象。调查结果将表明公众对互联网监管和网络中立性的担忧和政策。本研究计画将著重于数位基础设施、网际网路协议设计中的代表性考量，以及建构网路运作的数位惯例。该方法将结合技术科学材料与来自软件研究新兴领域的见解，以记录对数字用户和政策制定者的重要性，以及相互竞争的利益和需求。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。该项目将通过揭示协议作为权力、影响和控制场所的方式，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，从而促进技术专家、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.