Constructing Memories: Comparative Historical Sociotechical Analysis of Media, Communication and Information

Abstract

Comparative historical analyses concern differences that unfold over time. These differences may represent moments of change, or innovations, that are difficult to detect as they are occuring. Conversely, the critical attention to temporality in historical research may reveal that what seem like innovations in one moment also represent stability or mere periods in a reliably recurring cycle. This panel will consider the methodological potential and epistemological value of comparative histories in science and technology studies. Specifically, we are concerned with the sorts of data and methods that reshape where and how we witness innovation in histories of information and communication technology. We consider how variations in sociotechnical configurations are subsumed under narrow names, the contradictions of which can be sorted out with a comparative historical lens, and how preservation practices organize temporal experiences and possibilities.

Individual Presentations

• It’s the Phone: AT&T’s Construction of Landline and Mobile Telephony - Lee Humphreys, Cornell University

• The Problem of Scale in Comparative Historical Analysis - Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia

• Digital Regeneration: Media Archives and Residual Cultures of Time Travel - Megan Sapnar Ankerson, University of Michigan

• Archives and/as Infrastructures for Knowledge and Ignorance - Megan Finn, University of Washington

Session Organizer

• Megan Finn, University of Washington