Kosovo on the Web: A national Web history of a country without a domain Dr. Anat Ben-David Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel @anatbd
What are the possibilities and challenges in studying the Web histories of unstable countries and territories? Palestine - Not yet sovereign, CcTLD since 2003 Yugoslavia - Disintegrated in 1992, CcTLD outlived the country until 2010 Kosovo - Declared independence in 2008, but was never delegated a CcTLD
Sovereignty, State-Building and Standards Independence UN recognition Number of Countreis Recognising ISO 3166-1 FIPS Country Codes Palestine 1993 - Oslo accords 1998 - Observer Status 2012 - Observer State 136 (exc. US) PS WE / GZ Kosovo 2008 - Decleration of Independence No (RU veto) 112 (inc. US) XK (EU assigned) KV
Sovereignty and technological spaces Int. Dealing Code (ITU) CcTLD (ICANN) Country Facebook Recognition Local Google Name on Google Maps Palestine +970 1999.ps 2003 2010 Google.ps 2010 No Kosovo +383 2016 No 2012 No No
Digital Border-Markers National Web Demarcation CcTLD IP addresses Whois Data Mapping Network analysis
Histories of an Uncharted Web Territory (A reflexive approach) Charting instead of Mapping, Territory instead of Domain Mixed Temporalities Mixed Primary Sources Multiple Spatialities / histories Completeness is not a goal
Prospects of Sovereign Spatialities in different periods of the Web Period State of the Nation Source Type of Analysis Finding / Argument Early Web (~1997-2001) Kosovo War Alb-Net news groups URL extraction, Whois mapping, Topic Modeling Reporting War from the ground / via diaspora sources Web* From War to Post- Independence Live Web + Internet Archive Advance Search Outlink extraction from the Internet Archive Whois mapping Porous Networks" Post Web ~2008+ Digital Kosovo Facebook Page-Like Network of Facebook pages from Kosovo Bordering Albania and the US
The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?
The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?
The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?
Post Web - Has Kosovo given up on the Web and migrated to Facebook? Want to order a book from Amazon and have it delivered to your home in Pristina, Kosovo s capital? Because Amazon doesn t recognize Kosovo as an independent state, you need to put "Albania" as your country of residence, followed by "Kosovo Kosovo Kosovo" in the additional comments box, just to drill home the point that you don t actually live in Albania. And even then, orders end up disappearing in the bureaucratic cracks -Phillip Boyes, Foreign Policy, December 2013
Digital Kosovo
Kosovar / Albanian Musicians US Government Kosovar NGOs Albanian NGOs Hollywood EU Political Parties UK Universities Source: Socialbakers.com, Top 100 Facebook Pages from Kosovo
Does the hyperlink network paradigm hold when a country has no CcTLD? Searching the Live Web: Kosovo / Kosova/ Kosove in URL; results from Kosovo to Combining live Web lists with historical list from Extracting outlinks from lists through the http://biblioteka-ks.org http://bit-kosova.com http://bks-ks.org http://blueskylive.com http://bosnalijek-ks.net http://botasot.info http://bpk-kos.org http://bqk-kos.org http://britishcouncil.org http://bu-ks.net http://building-ks.net http://business-kosovo.com http://caa-ks.org http://cacttus.com http://cardial-kosova.com http://cato.org http://cbak-kos.org http://ccm-kosovo.com http://civilsocietyindex.wordpress.com http://clardkosovo.org Generating historical hyperlink networks per
Emerging naming conventions: Websites with Kosov in URL, geolocated in Kosovo URLs Seeds 772 Extracted 332 0 300 600 900 1200 120 Independence - State Building 90 Facebook Recognition 60 War 30 0 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Emerging naming conventions: Websites with Kosovo in URL, geolocated in Kosovo
Websites with KS in URL - Geolocated in Prishtina (Whois in disarray) AL RS KV GB US MC YU XK SI 80 60 40 20 0 URLs
Conclusions Official Standards vs. Soft Sovereignty (URL conventions, Facebook as preferred space) The limits of this study (Distorted Whois temporalities / Network reconstruction as artefact Web s history proposes different knowledge paradigms through which national webs are studied What can be learned from this to other national Webs? The demise of the cctld and the rise of social platforms as the border-making technologies of the Web
Kosovo on the Web: A national Web history of a country without a domain Dr. Anat Ben-David Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel @anatbd