The Internet of Futures Past

Values Trajectories of Networking Protocol Projects

Bibliographic Data

ID5337116
AuthorsBritt Paris (0000-0003-1527-7953, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume46
Issue5
Pages1021-1047
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243920974083
OpenAlexW3110379759
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited29

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

Business · Documentation · Futures contract · Knowledge management · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Sociotechnical system · The Internet · World Wide Web · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Computer Science · Law · Opportunistic and Delay-Tolerant Networks · Social Media and Politics · Architecture

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