Article ID: CBB589331477

The Internet of Futures Past: Values Trajectories of Networking Protocol Projects (September 2021)

unapi

The Internet was conceptualized as a technology that would be capable of bringing about a better future, but recent literature in science and technology studies and adjacent fields provides numerous examples of how this pervasive sociotechnical system has been shaped and used to dystopic ends. This article examines different future imaginaries present in Future Internet Architecture (FIA) projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2006 to 2016, whose goal was to incorporate social values while building new protocols to replace Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol to transfer and route information across the ever-expanding Internet. I examine the findings from two of the NSF’s FIA projects—Mobility First (MF) and eXpressive Internet Architecture—to understand the projects’ trajectories and values directives through their funding cycle and their projections into the future. I discuss how project documentation and participant articulations fall into the following three distinct themes about past experience and speculation: understanding the public, negotiating resources, and carrying project values into the future. I conclude that if the future Internet is to promote positive sociotechnical relationships, its architects must recognize that complex social and political decisions pervade each step of technical work and do more to honor this fact.

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Authors & Contributors
Jasanoff, Sheila
Nell Haynes
James Stewart
Jessa Lingel
Louise Amoore
Włodzimierz Gogołek
Journals
Science, Technology and Human Values
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Social Studies of Science
Ethics, Place and Environment
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
Publishers
UCL Press
New York University Press
University of Chicago Press
University of California Press
Reaktion Books
Duke University Press
Concepts
Computers and computing
Technology and society
Internet
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Algorithms
Imaginaries
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
Places
United States
London (England)
Israel
Chile
Great Britain
Brazil
Institutions
NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity
Cisco Systems, Inc.
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
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