Many technologies and practices that have shaped today’s Web 2.0 date back to the 1990s—and so do the ideas of social media, user-generated content, and participatory platforms.
From a media-historical perspective, a lot of the ideas from that period about the future of the internet have indeed been implemented, albeit without fulfilling the envisioned socio-political utopias.
In his new book, Clemens Apprich explores the history of an alternative web discourse and develops a media genealogical understanding that is necessary to think beyond today's predominant concept of socio-technical networks and to intervene in current debates about the Internet.