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Alexander R. Galloway, "Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization (Leonardo Books)"

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.

Review

"A very valuable, very original, and very significant contribution to the field of media studies and cultural theory."

—Tilman Baumgärtel, media critic, author of net.art and net.art 2.0—New Material towards Net Art

"An engaging methodological hybrid of the Frankfurt School and UNIX for Dummies.... Galloway brings the uncool question of morality back into critical thinking."

— Ed Halter, The Village Voice

"Expressing some startling new lines of thought with refreshingly straightforward clarity, Galloway reminds all of us why thinking about networks and their protocols is so relevant to our time. From FTP to fluxus or Deleuze to DNS, these are the connections that need to be made between the models competing to be our reality."

—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus, Coercion, and Nothing Sacred

"Galloway is one of the very few people who are equally well versed in poststructuralist cultural theory and computer programming."

"Protocol...is a book on computer science written by someone who's not a computer scientist, and that's a good thing."

— Gary Singh, Metro

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