Hello AOIR! A short note to announce an exciting special issue of WiderScreen about pre-internet computer cultures, subcultures, and "scenes." Eight articles explore people, places, and practices that have been relegated to the periphery of 1980s computing histories. See the email below for titles, authors, and other information about the special issue. All of the articles are open access and available on the public web: http://widerscreen.fi All my best, Kevin ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gleb J. Albert <gleb.albert@uzh.ch> Date: Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 3:05 PM Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] WiderScreen 2-3/2020: "Home Computer Cultures and Society Before the Internet Age" To: <members@lists.sigcis.org> Dear colleagues and list members, I am very happy to announce that a selection of papers on the history of home computer user- and subcultures in the 1980s and early 1990s, which had originally been presented at an international workshop at the University of Zurich in March 2017, are now available in a thematic issue of the Finnish media studies open-access journal "WiderScreen". The issue, edited by Julia Gül Erdogan, Markku Reunanen and myself, is available at: http://widerscreen.fi/ Here is the full table of contents: - Theodore Lekkas & Aristotle Tympas (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens): "Global Machines and Local Magazines in 1980s Greece: The Exemplary Case of the Pixel Magazine" - Patryk Wasiak (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw): "The Polish Amiga Scene as a Brand Community" - Gleb J. Albert (Department of History, University of Zurich): "New Scenes, New Markets: The Global Expansion of the Cracking Scene, Late 1980s to Early 1990s" - Beatrice Tobler (Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg): "BBS Worlds. Looking Back at the Swiss BBS Scene of the 1990s" - Petri Saarikoski (Digital Culture, University of Turku): "The Rise and Fall of BBS Culture in Finland, 1982–2002" - Ulf Sandqvist (Humlab, Umeå University): "Hobbyist and Entrepreneurs: A Study of the Interplay Between the Game Industry and the Demoscene" - Kevin Driscoll (Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia): "Demography and Decentralization: Measuring the Bulletin Board Systems of North America" - Julia Gül Erdogan (Institute of History, Department History of the Effects of Technology, University of Stuttgart): "West and East German Hackers from a Comparative Perspective" Best wishes, Gleb -- Dr. Gleb J. Albert Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich Forschergruppe "Medien und Mimesis" Universität Zürich Historisches Seminar Culmannstr. 1 CH-8006 Zürich Switzerland Tel. +41-446346187 <http://uzh.academia.edu/GlebJAlbert> <http://www.fg-mimesis.de>