Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization (Hardcover)

Description:

Is the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely exchanged information or a regulated, highly structured virtual bureaucracy? In Protocol, Alexander Galloway argues that the founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating the computer as a textual medium that is based on a technological language, code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. Instead of relying on established theoretical approaches, Galloway finds a new way to write about digital media, drawing on his backgrounds in computer programming and critical theory. "Discipline-hopping is a necessity when it comes to complicated socio-technical topics like protocol," he writes in the preface.

Galloway begins by examining the types of protocols that exist, including TCP/IP, DNS, and HTML. He then looks at examples of resistance and subversion -- hackers, viruses, cyberfeminism, Internet art -- which he views as emblematic of the larger transformations now taking place within digital culture. Written for a nontechnical audience, Protocol serves as a necessary counterpoint to the wildly utopian visions of the Net that were so widespread in earlier days.

Alexander R. Galloway is Assistant Professor of Media Ecology at New York University.

Table of Contents:

Series Foreword	ix
	Foreword: Protocol Is as Protocol Does Eugene Thacker	xi
	Preface	xxiii
	Acknowledgments	xxv
I	How Control Exists after Decentralization	1
	Introduction	2
1	Physical Media	28
2	Form	54
3	Power	80
II	Failures of Protocol	117
4	Institutionalization	118
III	Protocol Futures	145
5	Hacking	146
6	Tactical Media	174
7	Internet Art	208
	Conclusion	240
	About the Author	247
	Index	249

描述：
《Protocol》一書中，亞歷山大·加洛韋（Alexander Galloway）主張互聯網的創立原則是控制而非自由，並且這種控制力量存在於使網絡連接（和斷開連接）成為可能的技術協議中。他將計算機視為一種基於技術語言——代碼的文本媒介，並主張代碼可以像任何自然語言一樣接受文化和文學分析；計算機語言具有自己的語法、語法、社區和文化。加洛韋不依賴於既有的理論方法，而是以他在計算機編程和批判理論方面的背景為基礎，找到了一種新的關於數字媒體的寫作方式。他在前言中寫道：“對於像協議這樣複雜的社會技術主題，跨學科是必要的。”
加洛韋首先研究了存在的各種協議，包括TCP/IP、DNS和HTML。然後，他觀察了抵抗和顛覆的例子——黑客、病毒、網絡女性主義、互聯網藝術——他認為這些例子象徵著數字文化中正在發生的更大變革。《Protocol》是為非技術讀者而寫的，它作為對早期普遍存在的對互聯網的狂熱烏托邦幻想的必要對照。
亞歷山大·R·加洛韋是紐約大學媒體生態學助理教授。

目錄：
系列前言
序言：協議即協議
尤金·塔克
前言
致謝
第一部分：去中心化後的控制方式
第一章：協議的存在方式