Digital keywords: a vocabulary of information society and culture

352 Pages·2018·5.17 MB·English

by  Peters, Benjamin

Digital Keywords
Tom Boellstorff and Bill Maurer, series editors
This series presents innovative work that extends classic ethnographic methods and
questions into areas of pressing interest in technology and economics. It explores the
varied ways new technologies combine with older technologies and cultural under-
standings to shape novel forms of subjectivity, embodiment, knowledge, place, and
community. By doing so, the series demonstrates the relevance of anthropological in-
quiry to emerging forms of digital culture in the broadest sense.
Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond by
Stefan Helmreich with contributions from Sophia Roosth and Michele
Friedner
Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture edited by
Benjamin Peters
Digital
Keywords
A Vocabulary of Information
Society and Culture
Edited by
Benjamin Peters
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2016 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
Cover and interior design by Amanda Weiss
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Peters, Benjamin, 1980– editor.
Title: Digital keywords : a vocabulary of information society and culture / edited by
Benjamin Peters.
Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2016] | Series: Princeton studies in
culture and technology | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015037156 | ISBN 9780691167336 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780691167343 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Computers and civilization. | Information society—Terminology. | Digital
media—Terminology. | Culture—Terminology. | Sociolinguistics. | Vocabulary. | English
language—Etymology. | English language—Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Classification: LCC QA76.9.C66 D544 2016 | DDC 303.48/34—dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037156
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Arial and Sabon Next LT Pro
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To our students, past and future
And to those who inspired this book
and cannot read it

Words are actions, and actions are also a kind of words.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
Benjamin Peters xiii
1 Activism
Guobin Yang 1
2 Algorithm
Tarleton Gillespie 18
3 Analog
Jonathan Sterne 31
4 Archive
Katherine D. Harris 45
5 Cloud
John Durham Peters 54
6 Community
Rosemary Avance 63
7 Culture
Ted Striphas 70
8 Democracy
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen 81
9 Digital
Benjamin Peters 93
10 Event
Julia Sonnevend 109
11 Flow
Sandra Braman 118