WHAT DEAD-AND-DYING PLATFORMS DO FOR INTERNET STUDIES: SITUATING TECHNOLOGICAL FAILURE, DIGITAL AFTERLIFE, AND THE WEB THAT WAS

This panel explores internet histories through the lens of “platformdeath” as a way of understanding how digital communities grapple with technological failure,power dynamics, and the divergent notions of the digital afterlife. Collectively, thecontributions address the cultural, geopolitical, economic, and socio-legal repercussions ofwhat happens when various platforms fail, decline, or expire. We bring together fivepresentations that draw on different methods—including document analysis, semi-structuredinterviews, participant observation—to explore the frailty of platforms, their underlyinginfrastructures, and their trace data. Together, by examining and theoretically situatingthe histories of five different platforms (TroopTube, Fanfou, MySpace, YikYak, andCouchsurfing), we consider and complicate how the concept of “platform death” as a metaphorcan help reveal the Web’s rhythmic temporality, digital media’s constant reinvention offorms, and the collision of hegemonic and fragile infrastructures in divergent culturalcontexts. We ask: What are the theoretical implications of situating platforms as killable,ephemeral, precarious, or transient technologies? What—and who—kills platforms, and in whatways can they have uncertain digital afterlives and even resurrections? What canconceptualizations of dead and dying technologies tell us about the Internet’s growth andstagnation, its present and futures? What is (un)knowable about platforms that once were,and how can this knowledge inform our predictions of future technological failure? We aim tobuild community, collective imaginings, and future collaborations around a research agendathat centers mnemonic experimentation, comparative platform studies, and archivalcontestations.