ABSTRACT
Across time, space and language, the meaning of “the Internet” is taken to be self-evident; appearing to both the scholar and the everyday user as a singular, homogeneous sociotechnical phenomenon. But the Internet, as it is generally known, is as much mythology as technology, a shared set of narratives that frame our expectations of the future. As we begin to write comparative, critical histories of the Internet, this seemingly stable object breaks apart, revealing a diversity of experiences, technologies, norms and motivations. The epistemological problem at the heart of Internet history requires us to borrow creatively from other fields and develop new historical methods. To arrive at new operational definitions of the Internet, we advocate the pursuit of hidden histories, obscure sources and less visible networks, stoking new life into vernacular terms such as “the Net.”
