Amit Ray

…ffers a framework for historicizing software and dislodging it from its purely instrumental sphere. Besides Manovich and Fuller, key names in software studies include Wendy Chun, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Lori Emerson, Shannon Mattern, and yes, German media theorist Friedrich Kittler who memorably proclaimed “there is no software.” I would now like to take a few mome…ffers a framework for historicizing software and dislodging it from its purely instrumental sphere. Besides Manovich and Fuller, key names in software studies include Wendy Chun, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Lori Emerson, Shannon Mattern, and yes, German media theorist Friedrich Kittler who memorably proclaimed “there is no software.” I would now like to take a few moments to offer my own elaboration of a software studies framework …

… Studies: A Lexicon puts it this way in his introduction to a 2008 MIT Press volume on the subject: “While applied computer science and related disciplines … have now accreted half a century of work on this domain, software is often a blind spot in the wider, broadly cultural theorization and study of computational and networked digital media…. Software is seen as a tool, something you do something with. It is neutral, grey, or optimistically blue.” Software studies, as a sub-field of digital media studies, thus offers a framework for historicizin…