Modern approaches to studying the impact of tech platforms like the internet typically stress the ways that tech platforms and the limitations of its interfaces changes the way that its users think about the platform and themselves. But as Tung-Hui Hu stresses in the thesis of his book A Prehistory of the Cloud, this approach ignores the social institutions and physical infrastructure these platforms was built on (Hu, 2015, p. x). Mentality's that grew out of the cold war, and physical infrastructure like high ways and railroad tracks (Hu, 2015, p. xvi). This blog will expand off of Hu's original work and also explore how France and China approached there own Internets, and the philosophical differences between them, which ultimately seems to be rooted in how each culture approaches the concept of freedom.
- A Prehistory of the Cloud
