Much of the existing research on digital media platforms focuses either on the use of ‘big data’, political economy, or ethnographic approaches to the experiences of platform users in the present. When historical work is undertaken, it meets with significant obstacles with regard to accessing materials, and can too easily privilege dominant voices and narratives. In this workshop, we highlight the value and methodological challenges of exploring the histories of both mainstream and ‘minor’ platforms, including especially the need to draw on diverse perspectives and materials in platform historiography.

We begin with the ‘platform biography’ approach, which draws on archival material and user experience to study the emergence, embedding, and contestation of key platform-specific features and the social norms associated with them. Using Twitter as a case study, we use the @, #hashtag, and Retweet to tell the larger story of how Twitter has evolved amid ongoing uncertainty and contestation about its purpose and meaning. We then look at historiographical approaches to ‘minor platforms’ as a means of questioning how grassroots, oppositional, and even ‘failed’ platforms can help orient us toward alternative ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘feeling’ the media historical present. This involves exploring the discursive and affective archives of platforms by utilizing resources such as archive.org. In a structured group activity, participants will then apply these ideas to different platform case studies with relevance to their own research.