The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Interrogating the politics and performativity of web archives

Interrogating the politics and performativity of web archives
Interrogating the politics and performativity of web archives
Since the mid-1990s institutions such as national libraries and the Internet Archive have been ‘archiving the Web’ through the harvesting, collection and preservation of ‘web objects’ (e.g. websites, web pages, social media) in web archives [55]. Much of the focus of the web archiving community has been on the continued development of technologies and practices for web collection development [38], with an increased attention in recent years on facilitating the scholarly use of web archives [25, 24, 61]. This research will take a step back to consider the place of web archives in light of ‘the archival turn’ and emergent questions over the ever- expansive role of the archive and the Web in everyday life. First coined by Stoler [81], ‘the archival turn’ denotes a shift from ‘archive as source’ to ‘archive as subject,’ signalling wide-ranging epistemological questions concerning the role of the archive (and the archivist) in shaping and legitimising knowledge and particular ways of knowing. This research proposes to re-situate web archives as places of knowledge and cultural production in their own right, by implicating both the web archivist and the technologies in the shaping of the ‘politics of ephemerality’ [82] that lead to the creation and maintenance of web archives. This study will identify key underlying assumptions about what the Web is (e.g. a ‘Web of Documents,’ ‘abstract information space’), what of the contemporary Web is (or isn’t) being archived, and the relative affordances for web archival practice and scholarly use. Furthermore, drawing on critical approaches to information, Science and Technology Studies and Web Science, this research will engage with the performativity of web archiving, the practices of selection, collection and classification, and the possible implications for a socio-technical understanding of web archives.
Ogden, Jessica
b6d5ec4e-8ea5-421c-8db2-d46aea6af925
Ogden, Jessica
b6d5ec4e-8ea5-421c-8db2-d46aea6af925

Ogden, Jessica (2016) Interrogating the politics and performativity of web archives. JCDL2016: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2016: Doctoral Consortium, Newark, United States. 19 - 23 Jun 2016. 10 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s institutions such as national libraries and the Internet Archive have been ‘archiving the Web’ through the harvesting, collection and preservation of ‘web objects’ (e.g. websites, web pages, social media) in web archives [55]. Much of the focus of the web archiving community has been on the continued development of technologies and practices for web collection development [38], with an increased attention in recent years on facilitating the scholarly use of web archives [25, 24, 61]. This research will take a step back to consider the place of web archives in light of ‘the archival turn’ and emergent questions over the ever- expansive role of the archive and the Web in everyday life. First coined by Stoler [81], ‘the archival turn’ denotes a shift from ‘archive as source’ to ‘archive as subject,’ signalling wide-ranging epistemological questions concerning the role of the archive (and the archivist) in shaping and legitimising knowledge and particular ways of knowing. This research proposes to re-situate web archives as places of knowledge and cultural production in their own right, by implicating both the web archivist and the technologies in the shaping of the ‘politics of ephemerality’ [82] that lead to the creation and maintenance of web archives. This study will identify key underlying assumptions about what the Web is (e.g. a ‘Web of Documents,’ ‘abstract information space’), what of the contemporary Web is (or isn’t) being archived, and the relative affordances for web archival practice and scholarly use. Furthermore, drawing on critical approaches to information, Science and Technology Studies and Web Science, this research will engage with the performativity of web archiving, the practices of selection, collection and classification, and the possible implications for a socio-technical understanding of web archives.

Text
JOgden_JCDL16_DC.pdf - Other
Restricted to Repository staff only
Request a copy

More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 19 June 2016
Venue - Dates: JCDL2016: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2016: Doctoral Consortium, Newark, United States, 2016-06-19 - 2016-06-23
Organisations: Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 397710
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/397710
PURE UUID: 09bb2323-9813-44a4-9fa4-8471539444cd
ORCID for Jessica Ogden: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-7340

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 05 Jul 2016 10:39
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 01:21

Export record

Contributors

Author: Jessica Ogden ORCID iD

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×