Information infrastructure is a network of cultural artifacts and practices. A database is not merely a technical construct; it represents a set of values and it also shapes what we see and how we see it. Every time we name something and itemize its attributes, we make some things visible and others invisible. We sometimes think of infrastructure, like computer networks, as outside of culture. But pathways, whether made of stone, optical fiber or radio waves, are built because of cultural connections. How they are built reflects the traditions and values as well as the technical skills of their creators. Infrastructure in turn shapes culture. Making some information hard to obtain creates a need for an expert class. Counting or not counting something changes the way it can be used. Increasingly it is the digital infrastructure that shapes our access to information and we are just beginning to understand how the pathways and containers and practices we build in cyberspace shape knowledge itself.

The advent of the computer has made possible an event that has happened only a few times in human history: the creation of a new medium of representation. The name "computer" fails to adequately convey the power of this medium, since a machine that executes procedures and processes vast quantities of symbolic representation is not merely a bigger calculator. It is a symbol processor, a transmitter of meaningful cultural codes. The advent of the machinery of computing is similar to that of the movie camera or the TV broadcast. The technical substrate is necessary but not sufficient for the process of meaning-making, which also depends on the related cultural process of inventing the medium. Cyberinfrastructure is an evolving creation. It is both technical and cultural, constrained and empowered by human skills and traditions, and possessing the same power to shape and expand the knowledge base that the print infrastructure has maintained for the past 500 years, and that the broadcast and moving image infrastructures have for the past 100 years.

TrackBack