Kosovo on the Web: A national Web history of a country without a domain

Dr. Anat Ben-David Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel @anatbd

What are the possibilities and challenges in studying the Web histories of unstable countries and territories?

Palestine - Not yet sovereign, CcTLD since 2003

Yugoslavia - Disintegrated in 1992, CcTLD ‘outlived’ the country until 2010

Kosovo - Declared independence in 2008, but was never delegated a CcTLD

Sovereignty, State-Building and Standards

Independence UN recognitionNumber of Countreis

RecognisingISO 3166-1 FIPS

Country Codes

Palestine1993 - Oslo accords

1998 - Observer Status

2012 - Observer State

136 (exc. US) PS WE / GZ

Kosovo2008 - Decleration of Independence

No (RU veto) 112 (inc. US) XK

(EU assigned) KV

Sovereignty and technological spaces

Int. Dealing Code(ITU)

CcTLD(ICANN)

Facebook Recognition Local Google

Country Name on

Google Maps

Palestine+970

1999

.ps

2003 2010 Google.ps 2010 No

Kosovo +383 2016 No 2012 No No

Digital Border-Markers

National Web Demarcation

CcTLDIP addressesWhois Data

“Mapping”Network analysis

Histories of an Uncharted Web Territory(A reflexive approach)

“Charting” instead of Mapping, “Territory” instead of Domain

Mixed Temporalities

Mixed Primary Sources

Multiple Spatialities / histories

“Completeness” is not a goal

Prospects of Sovereign Spatialities in different periods of the Web

Period “State of the Nation” Source Type of Analysis Finding /

Argument

“Early Web” (~1997-2001) Kosovo War Alb-Net news

groups

URL extraction, Whois mapping, Topic Modeling

Reporting War from the ground /

via diaspora sources

Web* From War to Post-

Independence

Live Web + Internet Archive

Advance Search Outlink extraction from the Internet

Archive Whois mapping

“Porous Networks"

“Post Web” ~2008+ “Digital Kosovo” Facebook

Page-Like Network of

Facebook pages from Kosovo

Bordering Albania and the

US

The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?

The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?

The Early Web - Reporting the Kosovo War from the ground?

“Post Web” - Has Kosovo given up on the Web and migrated to Facebook?

“Want to order a book from Amazon and have it delivered to your home in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital?

Because Amazon doesn’t recognize Kosovo as an independent state, you need to put "Albania" as your country of residence, followed by "Kosovo Kosovo Kosovo" in the additional comments box, just to drill home the point that you don’t actually live in Albania. And even then, orders end up disappearing in the bureaucratic cracks”

-Phillip Boyes, Foreign Policy, December 2013

Digital Kosovo

UK Universities

EU Political Parties

US Government

Kosovar NGOs

Albanian NGOs

Kosovar / Albanian Musicians

Hollywood

Source: Socialbakers.com, Top 100 Facebook Pages from Kosovo

Does the hyperlink network paradigm hold when a country has no CcTLD?

Searching the Live Web: Kosovo / Kosova/Kosove in URL; results from Kosovo to

Combining live Web lists with historical list from

Extracting outlinks from lists through the

Generating historical hyperlink networks per

http://biblioteka-ks.org http://bit-kosova.com

http://bks-ks.org http://blueskylive.com http://bosnalijek-ks.net

http://botasot.info http://bpk-kos.org http://bqk-kos.org

http://britishcouncil.org http://bu-ks.net

http://building-ks.net http://business-kosovo.com

http://caa-ks.org http://cacttus.com

http://cardial-kosova.com http://cato.org

http://cbak-kos.org http://ccm-kosovo.com

http://civilsocietyindex.wordpress.com http://clardkosovo.org

0

30

60

90

120

1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

Independence - State Building

Facebook Recognition

War

URLs

0 300 600 900 1200

Seeds772

Extracted332

Emerging naming conventions: Websites with “Kosov” in URL, geolocated in Kosovo

Emerging naming conventions: Websites with “Kosovo” in URL, geolocated in Kosovo

Websites with KS in URL - Geolocated in “Prishtina”(Whois in disarray)

0

20

40

60

80

URLs

AL RS KV GB US MC YU XK SI

Conclusions

Web’s history proposes different knowledge paradigms through which national webs are studied

The limits of this study (Distorted Whois temporalities / Network reconstruction as artefact

What can be learned from this to other national Webs? The demise of the ccTLD and the rise of social platforms as the border-making technologies of the Web

Official Standards vs. “Soft Sovereignty” (URL conventions, Facebook as preferred space)

Kosovo on the Web: A national Web history of a country without a domain

Dr. Anat Ben-David Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel @anatbd