In this seminar we are going to inquire into the histories of “The Datafied Web”, through a historical lens. It is leading up to the annual conference of Siegen’s CRC Media of Cooperation from June 4-6, 2025. We will explore the historical roots, trends, and trajectories that shaped the data-driven paradigm in web development and 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 part of this, 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. How did the datafied web provide for the sensory media environments that we are now living in? What if we think about datafication as a practice of sensing and sense-making that creates, sustains, and undermines media environments?
- Dozent/in: Sebastian Gießmann