software studies
{{Short description|Field of study}}
{{For|technical approaches to software|Software engineering}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{Use Oxford spelling|date=April 2020}}
Software studies is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, which studies software systems and their social and cultural effects. The implementation and use of software has been studied in recent fields such as cyberculture, Internet studies, new media studies, and digital culture, yet prior to software studies, software was rarely ever addressed as a distinct object of study. To study software as an artifact, software studies draws upon methods and theory from the digital humanities and from computational perspectives on software. Methodologically, software studies usually differs from the approaches of computer science and software engineering, which concern themselves primarily with software in information theory and in practical application; however, these fields all share an emphasis on computer literacy, particularly in the areas of programming and source code. This emphasis on analysing software sources and processes (rather than interfaces) often distinguishes software studies from new media studies, which is usually restricted to discussions of interfaces and observable effects.
History
The conceptual origins of software studies include Marshall McLuhan's focus on the role of media in themselves, rather than the content of media platforms, in shaping culture. Early references to the study of software as a cultural practice appear in Friedrich Kittler's essay, "Es gibt keine Software",{{sfnm |1a1=Kittler |1y=1993 |1pp=225–242 |2a1=Kittler |2y=1995}} Lev Manovich's Language of New Media,{{sfn|Manovich|2001|pp=xxxix, 354}} and Matthew Fuller's Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software.{{sfn|Fuller|2003|p=165}} Much of the impetus for the development of software studies has come from video game studies, particularly platform studies, the study of video games and other software artifacts in their hardware and software contexts. New media art, software art, motion graphics, and computer-aided design are also significant software-based cultural practices, as is the creation of new protocols and platforms.
The first conference events in the emerging field were Software Studies Workshop 2006 and SoftWhere 2008.{{cite web |year=2006 |title=Software Studies Workshop |url=http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/Seminars2/softstudworkshop |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100327185154/http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/Seminars2/softstudworkshop |archive-date=27 March 2010 |access-date=5 April 2020}}[http://workshop.softwarestudies.com/ SoftWhere: Software Studies Workshop] San Diego 2008 conference website
In 2008,{{citation needed|date=April 2020}} MIT Press launched a Software Studies book series{{cite web |title=Software Studies – Series |url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/browse/browse.asp?btype=6&serid=179 |url-status=unfit |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=MIT Press |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100803154024/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/browse/browse.asp?btype=6&serid=179 |archive-date=3 August 2010 |access-date=18 January 2013}} with an edited volume of essays (Fuller's Software Studies: A Lexicon),{{sfn|Fuller|2008}} and the first academic program was launched, (Lev Manovich, Benjamin H. Bratton, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin's "Software Studies Initiative" at U. California San Diego).[http://lab.softwarestudies.com/ Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD] official website{{verification needed|date=April 2020}}
In 2011, a number of mainly British researchers established Computational Culture, an open-access peer-reviewed journal. The journal provides a platform for "inter-disciplinary enquiry into the nature of the culture of computational objects, practices, processes and structures."{{cite web|url=http://www.gold.ac.uk/cultural-studies/calendar/?id=4870|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130419161041/http://www.gold.ac.uk/cultural-studies/calendar/?id=4870|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-04-19|title=Computational Culture: Double Book Launch and Launch of Computational Culture, a Journal of Software Studies|location=London |publisher=Goldsmiths, University of London|date=December 2011|accessdate=January 18, 2013}}
Related fields
Software studies is closely related to a number of other emerging fields in the digital humanities that explore functional components of technology from a social and cultural perspective. Software studies' focus is at the level of the entire program, specifically the relationship between interface and code. Notably related are critical code studies, which is more closely attuned to the code rather than the program,{{cite web |url=http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress |title=Critical Code Studies |website=criticalcodestudies.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080117001643/http://criticalcodestudies.com/wordpress/ |archive-date=2008-01-17}} and platform studies, which investigates the relationships between hardware and software.{{cite web |last1=Bogost |first1=Ian |last2=Montfort |first2=Nick |title=Platform Studies: A Book Series Published by MIT Press |url=http://platformstudies.com |website=Platform Studies |access-date=18 January 2013}}{{cite news |last=Kirschenbaum |first=Matthew |date=23 January 2009 |title=Where Computer Science and Cultural Studies Collide |url=http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Computer-Science-and/14806 |url-access=subscription |journal=The Chronicle of Higher Education |access-date=18 January 2013}}
See also
{{Portal|Society|Technology}}
References
=Footnotes=
{{reflist|22em}}
=Bibliography=
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
- {{cite book
|last=Fuller
|first=Matthew
|author-link=Matthew Fuller (author)
|year=2003
|title=Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software
|location=New York
|publisher=Autonomedia
|isbn=978-1-57027-139-7
}}
- {{cite book
|year=2008
|editor-last=Fuller
|editor-first=Matthew
|editor-link=Matthew Fuller (author)
|editor-mask={{long dash}}
|title=Software Studies: A Lexicon
|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts
|publisher=MIT Press
|isbn=978-0-262-06274-9
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Kittler
|first=Friedrich
|author-link=Friedrich Kittler
|year=1993
|title=Draculas Vermächtnis: Technische Schriften
|language=de
|location=Leipzig
|publisher=Reclam
}}
- {{cite journal
|last=Kittler
|first=Friedrich
|author-link=Friedrich Kittler
|author-mask={{long dash}}
|year=1995
|title=There Is No Software
|url=http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=74
|journal=CTheory
|access-date=19 January 2013
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Manovich
|first=Lev
|author-link=Lev Manovich
|year=2001
|title=The Language of New Media
|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts
|publisher=MIT Press
|isbn=978-0-262-13374-6
}}
{{refend}}
Further reading
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
- {{cite book
|last=Bassett
|first=Caroline
|year=2007
|title=The Arc and the Machine: Narrative and New Media
|location=Manchester
|publisher=Manchester University Press
|isbn=978-0-7190-7342-7
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Berry
|first=David M.
|year=2008
|title=Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source
|url=https://archive.org/details/copyripburnpolit0000berr
|url-access=registration
|location=London
|publisher=Pluto Press
|doi=10.2307/j.ctt183q67g
|isbn=978-1-84964-455-6
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Berry
|first=David M.
|author-mask={{long dash}}
|year=2011
|title=The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age
|location=Basingstoke, England
|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan
|doi=10.1057/9780230306479
|isbn=978-0-230-24418-4
}}
- {{cite thesis
|last=Black
|first=Maurice J.
|year=2002
|title=The Art of Code
|type=PhD dissertation
|location=Philadelphia
|publisher=University of Pennsylvania
|oclc=244972113
|id={{ProQuest|305507258}}
}}
- {{cite book
|last1=Chopra
|first1=Samir
|last2=Dexter
|first2=Scott D.
|year=2008
|title=Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software
|location=New York
|publisher=Routledge
|doi=10.4324/9780203942147
|isbn=978-0-203-94214-7
}}
- {{cite journal
|last=Chun
|first=Wendy Hui Kyong
|author-link=Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
|year=2008
|title=On 'Sourcery,' or Code as Fetish
|url=https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:405433/
|journal=Configurations
|volume=16
|issue=3
|pages=299–324
|doi=10.1353/con.0.0064
|s2cid=53422082
|issn=1080-6520
|access-date=5 April 2020
}}
- {{cite journal
|last=Hayles
|first=N. Katherine
|author-link=N. Katherine Hayles
|year=2004
|title=Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis
|url=http://www.cws.illinois.edu/IPRHDigitalLiteracies/Hayles.pdf
|journal=Poetics Today
|volume=25
|issue=1
|pages=67–90
|doi=10.1215/03335372-25-1-67
|s2cid=16194046
|issn=1527-5507
|access-date=5 April 2020
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Heim
|first=Michael
|author-link=Michael R. Heim
|year=1987
|title=Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing
|url=https://archive.org/details/electriclanguage00heim
|url-access=registration
|location=New Haven, Connecticut
|publisher=Yale University Press
|isbn=978-0-300-03835-4
}}
- {{cite journal
|last=Kirschenbaum
|first=Matthew G.
|year=2004
|title=Extreme Inscription: Towards a Grammatology of the Hard Drive
|url=http://observatory.constantvzw.org/books/vol13_2_06.pdf
|journal=TEXT Technology
|issue=2
|pages=91–125
|issn=1053-900X
|access-date=5 April 2020
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Kittler
|first=Friedrich A.
|author-link=Friedrich Kittler
|year=1997
|editor-last=Johnston
|editor-first=John
|title=Literature, Media, Information Systems: Essays
|location=Amsterdam
|publisher=Overseas Publishers Association
|isbn=978-90-5701-071-2
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Kittler
|first=Friedrich A.
|author-link=Friedrich Kittler
|author-mask={{long dash}}
|year=1999
|title=Gramophone, Film, Typewriter
|translator1-last=Winthrop-Young
|translator1-first=Geoffrey
|translator2-last=Wutz
|translator2-first=Michael
|location=Stanford, California
|publisher=Stanford University Press
|isbn=978-0-8047-3232-1
}}
- {{cite web
|last=Mackenzie
|first=Adrian
|year=2003
|title=The Problem of Computer Code: Leviathan or Common Power
|url=https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/mackenza/papers/code-leviathan.pdf
|location=Lancaster, England
|publisher=Lancaster University
|access-date=6 April 2020
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Mackenzie
|first=Adrian
|author-mask={{long dash}}
|year=2006
|title=Cutting Code: Software and Sociality
|journal=Internet Research Annual
|series=Digital Formations
|volume=30
|location=Oxford
|publisher=Peter Lang
|isbn=978-0-8204-7823-4
|issn=1526-3169
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Manovich
|first=Lev
|author-link=Lev Manovich
|year=2013
|title=Software Takes Command
|url=https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/9781623566722_web
|location=New York
|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic
|isbn=978-1-62356-672-2
|access-date=6 April 2020
}}
- {{cite web
|last1=Manovich
|first1=Lev
|author1-link=Lev Manovich
|last2=Douglass
|first2=Jeremy
|year=2009
|title=Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Visual Media
|url=http://softwarestudies.com/cultural_analytics/visualizing_temporal_patterns.pdf
|access-date=10 October 2009
}}
- {{cite journal
|last=Marino
|first=Mark C.
|year=2006
|title=Critical Code Studies
|url=https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/critical-code-studies/
|journal=Electronic Book Review
|issn=1553-1139
|access-date=6 April 2020
}}
- {{cite book
|last1=Montfort
|first1=Nick
|author1-link=Nick Montfort
|last2=Bogost
|first2=Ian
|author2-link=Ian Bogost
|year=2009
|title=Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System
|title-link=Racing the Beam
|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts
|publisher=MIT Press
|isbn=978-0-262-01257-7
}}
- {{cite book
|last=Wardrip-Fruin
|first=Noah
|author-link=Noah Wardrip-Fruin
|year=2009
|title=Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies
|title-link=Expressive Processing
|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts
|publisher=MIT Press
|isbn=978-0-262-01343-7
}}
{{refend}}
External links
- [http://monoskop.org/Software_studies Software studies bibliography] at Monoskop.org