Sharon Ringel is a lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa. Her studies focus on digitization processes of archival sources and the preservation of digital-born materials.
AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, Oct 31, 2016
In this panel we seek to reflect upon the theme "internet rules" by drawing on the noti... more In this panel we seek to reflect upon the theme "internet rules" by drawing on the notion of standards, developed in Science and Technology Studies. The work of Susan Leigh Star lays a foundation for considering the relationships between rules, standards and algorithms as forms of infrastructure. In the panel, we explore the production of standards as they become transparent infrastructures, heeding Star and Lampland's call to restore these standards' "historical development, their political consequences, and the smoke-filled rooms always attached to decisions made about them" (2009:13). Standards – and algorithms – are rarely queried, as they promise and embody efficiency and order. Indeed, modernity may be described as a concentrated, relentless effort to contain the accidental, the arbitrary, the residual; to categorize, order, and routinize the unexpected; and to preclude the exceptional and unpredictable (Bauman, 1991) – in a word: to standardize. As Larkin writes, it is difficult to separate an analysis of infrastructures such as standards from the modernist belief that by promoting order, "infrastructures bring about change, and through change they enact progress, and through progress we gain freedom" (2013:332). It is ironic, then, that standards are distributed unevenly across the sociocultural landscape, that they are increasingly linked and integrated with one another, and that they codify, embody or prescribe social values that often carry great consequences for individuals and groups (Star and Lampland, 2009:5). In this context, the four papers and the moderator of this panel explore the meaning of contemporary standardization practices in such diverse fields as memory applications, crowd funding, biometric identification and national archiving, and internet literacy – viewing them as empirically distinct yet theoretically interrelated attempts to impose order in times of growing uncertainly. Together, they address two tensions that inform contemporary standardization efforts, regarding standards as an encounter between analogue and digital objects and practices; and as dialectic of invisibility and transparency, a pragmatic and symbolic endeavor.
ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institu... more ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies, and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands, however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved. Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel. The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We show that instead of an automated process in which machines convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival technology and future memory.
From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a... more From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a new identity for blockchain as capable of addressing anxieties over the capacity of digital media to permanently and accurately store information. In this article, we explore the ensuing mediation between blockchain enterprises and new professional communities to which they are catering. Drawing on thematic analysis, we analyze how this process is being carried out through the discursive construction of trust, leveraged rhetorically in academic, trade, and news publications to extend an application for financial transactions to cultural institutions. We describe how trust is used not only to mediate the introduction of an application that prioritizes decentralization and cryptography, but is the turf on which traditional institutions are staking a claim as the trustworthy managers of digital records through their use of blockchain. The concept of the archival imaginary—a vision of what ...
This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper... more This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper as an archival object. I study the traditional ‘morgue’ of physical clippings and photos, the Times’ joint project with Google Cloud to digitize its photo collection, and the TimesMachine interactive digital archive, which made scanned editions of printed issues from 1851 to 2002 publicly available online. Based on interviews with staff and analysis of documents describing past and present newspaper archiving practices, it is clear that the digital archive is not a comprehensive copy of an analogue original. There are a significant number of documents stored in physical archives that have not been translated to digital, and whose loss would be detrimental to historians and media scholars alike. Moreover, even the documents that have been scanned and made available as digital objects do not perfectly mirror their analogue equivalents, meaning that information loss is inherent to the digi...
ABSTRACT This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the offic... more ABSTRACT This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official National Socialist party’s magazine, NS FrauenWarte, published from 1934 to 1944. Analyses of the female body visuals help reveal the Nazi regime’s ideology and expectations of women within the Third Reich. Based on semiotic analysis of representations and illustrations appearing in 77 of the magazine’s issues, the study reads the female body as a site of negotiation on the Nazi women’s role in the German society. Ostensibly, we would expect representations appearing in essentially a propaganda magazine to portray Nazi ideology’s definition of women’s expected role in Nazi society. However, the findings indicate contradictions between various representations appearing in the magazine and Nazi ideology as expressed by leading Nazi ideologues. The magazine presents both “feminine,” healthy, and maternal bodies suited for nurturing “Hitler’s children,” as well as sexual and athletic body images, seemingly incompatible with Nazi ideology. In addressing these contradictions, this paper reveals Nazi ideology’s dynamism and complexity.
This research report explores archiving practices and policies across newspapers, magazines, wire... more This research report explores archiving practices and policies across newspapers, magazines, wire services, and digital-only news producers, with the aim of identifying the current state of archiving and potential strategies for preserving content in an age of digital distribution.
This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper... more This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper as an archival object. I study the traditional 'morgue' of physical clippings and photos, the Times' joint project with Google Cloud to digitize its photo collection, and the TimesMachine interactive digital archive, which made scanned editions of printed issues from 1851 to 2002 publicly available online. Based on interviews with staff and analysis of documents describing past and present newspaper archiving practices, it is clear that the digital archive is not a comprehensive copy of an analogue original. There are a significant number of documents stored in physical archives that have not been translated to digital, and whose loss would be detrimental to historians and media scholars alike. Moreover, even the documents that have been scanned and made available as digital objects do not perfectly mirror their analogue equivalents, meaning that information loss is inherent to the digitization process. As active producers of the past for contemporary purposes, these online news archives serve as cultural gatekeepers, actively shaping journalistic practice and reframing current events in reference to the past.
Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and
other cultural institutions hav... more Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies, and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands, however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved. Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel. The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We show that instead of an automated process in which machines convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival technology and future memory.
This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official Natio... more This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official National Socialist party’s magazine, NS FrauenWarte, published from 1934 to 1944. Analyses of the female body visuals help reveal the Nazi regime’s ideology and expectations of women within the Third Reich. Based on semiotic analysis of representations and illustrations appearing in 77 of the magazine’s issues, the study reads the female body as a site of negotiation on the Nazi women’s role in the German society. Ostensibly, we would expect representations appearing in essentially a propaganda magazine to portray Nazi ideology’s definition of women’s expected role in Nazi society. However, the findings indicate contradictions between various representations appearing in the magazine and Nazi ideology as expressed by leading Nazi ideologues. The magazine presents both “feminine,” healthy, and maternal bodies suited for nurturing “Hitler’s children,” as well as sexual and athletic body images, seemingly incompatible with Nazi ideology. In addressing these contradictions, this paper reveals Nazi ideology’s dynamism and complexity.
Despite their ephemeral constantly changing nature, social media constitute an archive of public ... more Despite their ephemeral constantly changing nature, social media constitute an archive of public discourse. In this study, we examine when, how, and why journalists practice proactive ephemerality, deleting their tweets either manually or automatically to consider the viability of social media as a public record. Based on interviews conducted with journalists in New York City, we find many journalists delete their tweets, and that software-aided mass deletion is common, damaging Twitter's standing as an archive. Through deletion, journalists manipulate temporality, exposing the public to a brief tweeting window to reduce risks and regain control in a precarious labor market and a harassment-ridden public sphere in which employers leave them largely unprotected. When deleting tweets mechanically, journalists emulate platform logic by dependingas commercial platforms often do-on automatic procedures rather than on human expertise. This constitutes a surrender of the very qualities that make human judgment so valuable.
From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a... more From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a new identity for blockchain as capable of addressing anxieties over the capacity of digital media to permanently and accurately store information. In this article, we explore the ensuing mediation between blockchain enterprises and new professional communities to which they are catering. Drawing on thematic analysis, we analyze how this process is being carried out through the discursive construction of trust, leveraged rhetorically in academic, trade, and news publications to extend an application for financial transactions to cultural institutions. We describe how trust is used not only to mediate the introduction of an application that prioritizes decentralization and cryptography, but is the turf on which traditional institutions are staking a claim as the trustworthy managers of digital records through their use of blockchain. The concept of the archival imaginary-a vision of what archives and blockchain should be and mean that pivots on imagined needs and technological capacities based on the current information ecology, institutional control, and expert systems-offers a way to illuminate this process.
This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework ada... more This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework adapted from digital history and historiography, it will investigate the implications of archival digitization. Through an empirical study of the National Library of Israel's digital depository of ephemera entitled 'Time Travel', the article demonstrates how the selection of archival records for digital preservation, the design of the search interface, and the crowdsourcing of metadata collection are all directing archive users toward certain narratives about Israeli history and away from others. Drawing on interviews with professionals, analysis of reports, and investigations of user experience, I will unearth the political, religious, and cultural tensions that lie beneath the surface of 'Time Travel'. This research demonstrates that digitization of archival documents is not just a technical process but a cultural, social, and political one as well.
AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, Oct 31, 2016
In this panel we seek to reflect upon the theme "internet rules" by drawing on the noti... more In this panel we seek to reflect upon the theme "internet rules" by drawing on the notion of standards, developed in Science and Technology Studies. The work of Susan Leigh Star lays a foundation for considering the relationships between rules, standards and algorithms as forms of infrastructure. In the panel, we explore the production of standards as they become transparent infrastructures, heeding Star and Lampland's call to restore these standards' "historical development, their political consequences, and the smoke-filled rooms always attached to decisions made about them" (2009:13). Standards – and algorithms – are rarely queried, as they promise and embody efficiency and order. Indeed, modernity may be described as a concentrated, relentless effort to contain the accidental, the arbitrary, the residual; to categorize, order, and routinize the unexpected; and to preclude the exceptional and unpredictable (Bauman, 1991) – in a word: to standardize. As Larkin writes, it is difficult to separate an analysis of infrastructures such as standards from the modernist belief that by promoting order, "infrastructures bring about change, and through change they enact progress, and through progress we gain freedom" (2013:332). It is ironic, then, that standards are distributed unevenly across the sociocultural landscape, that they are increasingly linked and integrated with one another, and that they codify, embody or prescribe social values that often carry great consequences for individuals and groups (Star and Lampland, 2009:5). In this context, the four papers and the moderator of this panel explore the meaning of contemporary standardization practices in such diverse fields as memory applications, crowd funding, biometric identification and national archiving, and internet literacy – viewing them as empirically distinct yet theoretically interrelated attempts to impose order in times of growing uncertainly. Together, they address two tensions that inform contemporary standardization efforts, regarding standards as an encounter between analogue and digital objects and practices; and as dialectic of invisibility and transparency, a pragmatic and symbolic endeavor.
ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institu... more ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies, and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands, however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved. Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel. The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We show that instead of an automated process in which machines convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival technology and future memory.
From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a... more From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a new identity for blockchain as capable of addressing anxieties over the capacity of digital media to permanently and accurately store information. In this article, we explore the ensuing mediation between blockchain enterprises and new professional communities to which they are catering. Drawing on thematic analysis, we analyze how this process is being carried out through the discursive construction of trust, leveraged rhetorically in academic, trade, and news publications to extend an application for financial transactions to cultural institutions. We describe how trust is used not only to mediate the introduction of an application that prioritizes decentralization and cryptography, but is the turf on which traditional institutions are staking a claim as the trustworthy managers of digital records through their use of blockchain. The concept of the archival imaginary—a vision of what ...
This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper... more This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper as an archival object. I study the traditional ‘morgue’ of physical clippings and photos, the Times’ joint project with Google Cloud to digitize its photo collection, and the TimesMachine interactive digital archive, which made scanned editions of printed issues from 1851 to 2002 publicly available online. Based on interviews with staff and analysis of documents describing past and present newspaper archiving practices, it is clear that the digital archive is not a comprehensive copy of an analogue original. There are a significant number of documents stored in physical archives that have not been translated to digital, and whose loss would be detrimental to historians and media scholars alike. Moreover, even the documents that have been scanned and made available as digital objects do not perfectly mirror their analogue equivalents, meaning that information loss is inherent to the digi...
ABSTRACT This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the offic... more ABSTRACT This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official National Socialist party’s magazine, NS FrauenWarte, published from 1934 to 1944. Analyses of the female body visuals help reveal the Nazi regime’s ideology and expectations of women within the Third Reich. Based on semiotic analysis of representations and illustrations appearing in 77 of the magazine’s issues, the study reads the female body as a site of negotiation on the Nazi women’s role in the German society. Ostensibly, we would expect representations appearing in essentially a propaganda magazine to portray Nazi ideology’s definition of women’s expected role in Nazi society. However, the findings indicate contradictions between various representations appearing in the magazine and Nazi ideology as expressed by leading Nazi ideologues. The magazine presents both “feminine,” healthy, and maternal bodies suited for nurturing “Hitler’s children,” as well as sexual and athletic body images, seemingly incompatible with Nazi ideology. In addressing these contradictions, this paper reveals Nazi ideology’s dynamism and complexity.
This research report explores archiving practices and policies across newspapers, magazines, wire... more This research report explores archiving practices and policies across newspapers, magazines, wire services, and digital-only news producers, with the aim of identifying the current state of archiving and potential strategies for preserving content in an age of digital distribution.
This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper... more This study uses three archiving efforts at the New York Times as a means to analyse the newspaper as an archival object. I study the traditional 'morgue' of physical clippings and photos, the Times' joint project with Google Cloud to digitize its photo collection, and the TimesMachine interactive digital archive, which made scanned editions of printed issues from 1851 to 2002 publicly available online. Based on interviews with staff and analysis of documents describing past and present newspaper archiving practices, it is clear that the digital archive is not a comprehensive copy of an analogue original. There are a significant number of documents stored in physical archives that have not been translated to digital, and whose loss would be detrimental to historians and media scholars alike. Moreover, even the documents that have been scanned and made available as digital objects do not perfectly mirror their analogue equivalents, meaning that information loss is inherent to the digitization process. As active producers of the past for contemporary purposes, these online news archives serve as cultural gatekeepers, actively shaping journalistic practice and reframing current events in reference to the past.
Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and
other cultural institutions hav... more Over the last couple of decades, libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies, and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands, however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved. Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel. The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We show that instead of an automated process in which machines convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival technology and future memory.
This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official Natio... more This study examines the ways in which the German female body is represented in the official National Socialist party’s magazine, NS FrauenWarte, published from 1934 to 1944. Analyses of the female body visuals help reveal the Nazi regime’s ideology and expectations of women within the Third Reich. Based on semiotic analysis of representations and illustrations appearing in 77 of the magazine’s issues, the study reads the female body as a site of negotiation on the Nazi women’s role in the German society. Ostensibly, we would expect representations appearing in essentially a propaganda magazine to portray Nazi ideology’s definition of women’s expected role in Nazi society. However, the findings indicate contradictions between various representations appearing in the magazine and Nazi ideology as expressed by leading Nazi ideologues. The magazine presents both “feminine,” healthy, and maternal bodies suited for nurturing “Hitler’s children,” as well as sexual and athletic body images, seemingly incompatible with Nazi ideology. In addressing these contradictions, this paper reveals Nazi ideology’s dynamism and complexity.
Despite their ephemeral constantly changing nature, social media constitute an archive of public ... more Despite their ephemeral constantly changing nature, social media constitute an archive of public discourse. In this study, we examine when, how, and why journalists practice proactive ephemerality, deleting their tweets either manually or automatically to consider the viability of social media as a public record. Based on interviews conducted with journalists in New York City, we find many journalists delete their tweets, and that software-aided mass deletion is common, damaging Twitter's standing as an archive. Through deletion, journalists manipulate temporality, exposing the public to a brief tweeting window to reduce risks and regain control in a precarious labor market and a harassment-ridden public sphere in which employers leave them largely unprotected. When deleting tweets mechanically, journalists emulate platform logic by dependingas commercial platforms often do-on automatic procedures rather than on human expertise. This constitutes a surrender of the very qualities that make human judgment so valuable.
From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a... more From its origins in virtual financial transactions, emerging initiatives are seeking to acquire a new identity for blockchain as capable of addressing anxieties over the capacity of digital media to permanently and accurately store information. In this article, we explore the ensuing mediation between blockchain enterprises and new professional communities to which they are catering. Drawing on thematic analysis, we analyze how this process is being carried out through the discursive construction of trust, leveraged rhetorically in academic, trade, and news publications to extend an application for financial transactions to cultural institutions. We describe how trust is used not only to mediate the introduction of an application that prioritizes decentralization and cryptography, but is the turf on which traditional institutions are staking a claim as the trustworthy managers of digital records through their use of blockchain. The concept of the archival imaginary-a vision of what archives and blockchain should be and mean that pivots on imagined needs and technological capacities based on the current information ecology, institutional control, and expert systems-offers a way to illuminate this process.
This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework ada... more This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework adapted from digital history and historiography, it will investigate the implications of archival digitization. Through an empirical study of the National Library of Israel's digital depository of ephemera entitled 'Time Travel', the article demonstrates how the selection of archival records for digital preservation, the design of the search interface, and the crowdsourcing of metadata collection are all directing archive users toward certain narratives about Israeli history and away from others. Drawing on interviews with professionals, analysis of reports, and investigations of user experience, I will unearth the political, religious, and cultural tensions that lie beneath the surface of 'Time Travel'. This research demonstrates that digitization of archival documents is not just a technical process but a cultural, social, and political one as well.
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Papers by Sharon Ringel
other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents
and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories
of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the
mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies,
and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its
pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands,
however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that
shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved.
Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography
opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel.
The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the
handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We
show that instead of an automated process in which machines
convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic
human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with
varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the
ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival
technology and future memory.
other cultural institutions have begun to scan archival documents
and develop digital collections of analog-born materials. Theories
of the archive politicize archival practices and highlight the
mediating role of both archivists and preservation technologies,
and recent accounts of the digital archive underscore both its
pervasiveness and its algorithmic post-humanism. Both strands,
however, ignore scanning – a human–computer interaction that
shapes the ways in which archival sources will be preserved.
Drawing on STS, HCI and HMC scholarship, this ethnography
opens the black box of scanning at the National Library of Israel.
The analysis focuses on three "breakdowns" that involve the
handling of a torn photo, an ancient map and a scan robot. We
show that instead of an automated process in which machines
convert materials into copies, archival scanning is a symbolic
human–computer interaction that produces digital objects with
varying relationships to the analog originals. We discuss the
ramifications of these insights to the social study of archival
technology and future memory.