Do you remember the beginnings of early metrics in the 90s, the birth of web counters, those digital pioneers that marked and started to quantify the pulse of online activity, the novelty of seeing website visits measured in real-time, eye-catching graphics becoming the currency of online attention, and the early days of companies like Webtrends, Urchin and DoubleClick?
We invite scholars, researchers, web archivists to contribute to the 6th RESAW conference on the topic of “The Datafied Web”, through a historical lens. We would like to delve into the historical roots, trends, and trajectories that shaped the data-driven paradigm in web development and to examine the genealogies of the datafied and metrified web. Historical studies of trajectories towards a databased web and the emergence of platform-driven mobile ecosystems are very welcome, as well as case studies for instance related to the development of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and the evolution of data-sharing practices.
Uncovering the early forms of analytics software, their origins, and the role they played in shaping the web landscape, and examining the historical context, aesthetics and role of web counters, analytics tools, mobile sensing and other metrics may also help us deepen our understanding of online interactions, past publics and audiences, and their (uneasy) trajectories. “The datafied web” also raises questions related to methods and (web) archives allowing to research this evolution: what are for instance the challenges and methodologies involved in archiving the metrified and increasingly mobile web, including the back-end infrastructure?
This theme also invites us to trace the historical trajectory of data surveillance and the evolution of data capturing practices on the web. Complementary are issues related to the historical development of tracking mechanisms, cookies, and the creation of digital footprints, as well as the evolution of companies relying on metrics, and the development of financialized web spaces and their implications.
By investigating historical controversies and debates surrounding the increasing datafication of the web and uncovering historical instances of innovative data use or resistance practices against the datafication of the web, this conference also aims at reconstructing vivid and key debates that are transversal to the history of the web. How did the datafied web provide for the sensory media environments that we are now living in?
Finally, we wish to discuss innovative research methodologies for uncovering the historical dimensions of the datafied and metrified web, as well as methods that are approaching web archives as data (from an archiving and research perspective) and explore them through distant reading, metadata, seed lists, and other methods. Plus, we want to encourage everyone to think about datafication as a practice of sensing and sense-making that creates, sustains, and undermines media environments.
This is a reblog from the original call at the RESAW homepage.
You can download a PDF version right here.
The Datafied Web
6th RESAW Conference
(5-6 June 2025, Siegen University)
Thematic scope and conference topics of the RESAW Conference
We encourage submissions addressing the conference theme ‘Histories of the Datafied Web’ through the following themes:
Infrastructures
- histories and genealogies of the datafied and metrified web, including its platformization within capitalism(s)
- aesthetics and design of the early metrified web
- the rise of data surveillance and data capture as an industry
- histories of APIs, data-sharing, and advertising technologies
- the rise of web counters, web analytics, and other web metrics
- histories of trackers, cookies, digital footprints, etc.
Publics
- methods and approaches towards audience of the past web
- historical controversies surrounding the datafication and platformization of the web
- histories of uses of data or practices of resistance to datafication and platform economies
- the rise of the financialization of the web, and its political economy
- histories of automation, virality, and popular practices on the web
Archives
- archiving the metrified web and back-end infrastructure of the web
- methodologies for writing histories of the datafied and metrified web
- web archives as data (archiving and documentation, distant reading, use of metadata, seed lists…)
- web archiving data practices and challenges
After the conference, the organizers will invite relevant contributors to participate in a special issue of Internet Histories related to the topic “The Datafied Web”.
Submissions that explore other aspects both within and outside of the general conference theme, are also welcome.
Submissions for the RESAW Conference
The deadline for submissions is 15 October 2024.
Submissions are welcome from all fields and disciplines, and we would particularly encourage postgraduate students and early career researchers to participate. We also encourage contributions that highlight non-Western and non-hegemonic developments. Contributions on practical challenges of web archiving in current moments of crisis are also very welcome.
Possible formats
- Individual papers of 15 minutes (500-word abstract).
- Panel sessions consisting of three individual papers of 15 minutes, introduced by a chair (500-word abstract for each paper, a brief 300-word description of the purpose of the panel).
- Other unconventional proposals like sessions of lightning talks, roundtables, etc., are welcome (300-word abstract).
- A session “My PhD in 5 Minutes” is foreseen (please apply by providing a 300-word abstract).
Acceptance of submissions is based on double-blind peer review.
Possible formats for the pre-conference day
- Submissions related to web archives are welcome from all fields and disciplines, and we would particularly encourage workshops related to tools, hands-on, as well as training sessions and demos.
- A whole pre-conference (500-word abstract)
- Workshops, demos and other formats related to web archives practices, methods, tools, demos (500-word abstract, specifying the expected duration)
Submissions
The deadline for submissions (including the pre-conference day) is 15th October 2024.
To submit a proposal :
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=resaw2025
Timetable
- 15 October 2024: Deadline for submissions
- 15 December 2024: Notifications of acceptance
- 25 January 2025: Programme
- March 2025: Registrations open (fees: 90 euros for advanced scholars, 50 euros for PhD students)
- 4 June 2025: Pre-conferences and demos
- 5-6 June 2025: Conference at Siegen University
The RESAW conference is organized by the CRC 1187 Media of Cooperation in collaboration with the RESAW Conference Committee.
The conference is funded in part, by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Projektnummer 262.513.311 – SFB 1187 Medien der Kooperation and in part by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), [INTER/DFG/23/17960744/DIGMEDIA].