Abstract
In The Stuff of Bits, Paul Dourish applies a materialist lens to explore information representation in computer emulation, spreadsheets, databases, Internet routing, and different types of Internets. Specifically, he aims to open new ways of analyzing software and digital systems to show how their material constraints shape and enable human capacity. He adopts a relational understanding of materiality, based on Donald Schön’s work on reflective practice, to explain the feedback loop between information design and materials. While considerations of brute materiality are sometimes mentioned, such as electrical signal strength, hardware temperature, or the density of wires, Dourish aims to examine other materialities beyond the tangible such as scale, transformability, convergence, fragility, and isolation.
After introducing the book, a cross-disciplinary literature review presents the material turns in disciplines like anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, and philosophy and relates them to studying information. Dourish commands a vast knowledge of information and computer science while simultaneously writing with ease across many disciplines. This transdisciplinary study of information, software, computer networking, and the Internet makes the book useful for a variety of social science researchers. After the introduction and literature review, which frame the state of material accounts in the relevant disciplines, Dourish presents five chapters employing the ‘tactical move of materialist analysis’ (p. 57) at varying degrees of abstraction.
There is a logical sequence in the order of the chapters, which employ conceptual tools that are used as scaffolding to build upon further in the book. Most integral to this is the discussion on virtuality in the first chapter. The chapter presents conceptual tools for thinking about information representations, from simple spreadsheets to complex and evolving Internet protocols. The discussion of the materiality of the virtual is explained through an examination of computer programs replicating other computers in a process called ‘emulation’. It is a well-executed first step to argue that the material can always be found in what may seem to be the most virtual. For instance, computer programs must adapt to hardware constraints, and the outputs of code are influenced by what is and is not specified in the code. Here, Dourish points to ‘the lie of virtuality’ (p. 23).
In the chapter on spreadsheets, Dourish draws on ethnographic field work of ‘spreadsheet events’ at NASA through the lens of organization studies. A material analysis is employed to connect digital materiality with social practice. He demonstrates how collaborative spreadsheets ‘shape’, ‘enable’, and ‘constrain’ information, as well as human behavior, via their formulas and grids. He sums up the significance of considering the impact of digitalized information by noting that ‘the materialities of digital and nondigital spreadsheets simply do not line up’ (p. 96).
The subsequent chapter on databases would be particularly relevant for researchers interested in algorithms, artificial intelligence, and the commercialization of data. The author argues that it is necessary to understand the specific attributes of a database before one can understand its utility. For this reason, a theoretical distinction is drawn between a generic set of data versus the vast array of features possessed by specialized database types. These minutiae are important because the specific attributes enable or shape the power of the database, which is multidirectional, reaching ‘inward toward architectures and outward toward society, systems, and services’ (p. 135).
The book takes a turn from literal representations of bits to consider data mobility in the chapters about computer networking. The author argues that Internet protocols, the processes by which computers share data over networks, also exhibit material properties. Pieces of information sent over networks are constrained and enabled by wires and factors such as time, length, signal strength, and speed. Protocol dictates the number of ‘hops’, or connections, data takes between two computers in a network and, therefore, has material impacts. Although protocols are often highly overlooked by the Internet user, they determine what is ‘doable and expressible in the network’ (p. 164).
The final chapter takes a broader view to present nine ‘othernets’, or ‘non Internet internets’ (p. 171), which were developed in parallel to what we currently call ‘the Internet’. In presenting these alternate ideas of networks, the Internet of our imaginations becomes less an anomaly and more a product of material, relational, and representational factors producing the current outcome. Essentially, the Internet is a result of certain institutional agreements, combined with brute material infrastructure. Ending the book with this discussion strengthens the author’s warning against a narrow view of the virtual or an equation of the material with the tangible; instead, Dourish implores the reader to maintain all these materialities, and their impact on human capacity, in view at once.
The Stuff of Bits is an important contribution to the academic examination of the material implications and properties of information technology. It opens avenues for advancing the field of software studies while contributing more broadly to research on information in the digital age. It would be particularly useful to anyone interested in an interdisciplinary perspective on information, data, and computer networking. As an essay, the book is mainly a high-level overview and warrants further, empirical explorations of individual topics. A particularly interesting follow-up might explore the impacts of information materiality on politics and policy, an idea alluded throughout the book. The Stuff of Bits is an interesting and well-written read full of fresh perspectives on very timely issues.