Internet historiography

Internet historiography here means the informal and formal practices of writing history about the internet: dating first posts, preserving threads, reconstructing meme genealogies, and citing archives. It is practised by academics, journalists, archivists, and amateur documentarians on sites like Know Your Meme.

Icebergs as historical sources

Iceberg charts are primary sources for what a community publicly ranked at a time, and secondary at best for the underlying facts. Good historiography triangulates charts against timestamps, archives (e.g. Wayback Machine), and contemporary reporting.

See also

• Know Your Meme
• Internet culture
• Lost media
• Internet folklore

Sources

• Web historiography and digital preservation discussions (general).
• Method notes implicit in meme-database research practices.