Web historiography and Internet Studies: Challenges and perspectives

Abstract

I argue that web historiography should be placed higher on the Internet Studies’ research agenda, since a better understanding of the web of the past is an important condition for gaining a more complete understanding of the web of today, regardless of our focus (e.g. political economy, language and culture, social interaction or everyday use). Building on reflections about ’historiography’ and the ’web’, I discuss several major challenges of web historiography vis-à-vis historiography in general, focusing on the characteristics of the archived website and the web sphere, and the consequences of these characteristics for web historians. I conclude by outlining future directions for web historiography.