Bill Aspray on the emergence of internet studies

Bill Aspray of IU’s School of Informatics provided the Schneider Distinguished Lecture 2007 at the School of Information here in Austin yesterday, providing a detailed overview of the status of internet studies as a professional field of enquiry in the academy. I don’t care for the term ‘internet studies’ but as he noted, think ‘informatics’ or ‘information studies’ when you hear the term and the rest of his analysis applies. The Daily Texan coverage highlights the curricular aspects of his talk but he spoke widely of the contested terrain we are witnessing in the intellectual and scholarly response to the social and technical phenomena surrounding the ‘net. What struck me clearly from his presentation was the rather confused manner in which universities are responding. The tension between people in each discipline slicing off their own ‘relevant’ concerns and those who want to create a new interdisciplinary field of enquiry is palpable. As Bill noted, interdisciplinary programs don’t tend to do well in most universities, which of course should make us wonder if disciplines take on the role of distinguishing themselves to the exclusion of asking and answering important research questions.