Files : law and media technology / Cornelia Vismann ; translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vismann, Cornelia

Series:

Meridian (Stanford, Calif.)

Meridian

Standardized Title:

Akten. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Information storage and retrieval systems--Law.

Information storage and retrieval systems.

Digital media--Law and legislation.

Digital media.

Files (Records)--Technological innovations.

Files (Records).

Technological innovations.

Physical Description:

xv, 187 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo (what is not on file is not in the world). Once files are reduced to the status of stylized icons on computer screens, the reign of paper files appears to be over. With the epoch of files coming to an end, we are free to examine its fundamental influence on Western institutions. From a media-theoretical point of view, subject, state, and law reveal themselves to be effects of specific record-keeping and filing practices. Files are not simply administrative tools; they mediate and process legal systems. The genealogy of the law described in Vismann's Files ranges from the work of the Roman magistrates to the concern over one's own file, as expressed in the context of the files kept by the East German State Security Service. The book concludes with a look at the computer architecture in which all the stacks, files, and registers that had already created order in medieval and early modern administrations make their reappearance.

Contents:

Preface: Off the Record xi

1 Law's Writing Lessons 1

2 From Translating to Legislating 39

3 From Documents to Records 71

4 Governmental Practices 102

5 From the Bureau to Data Protection 123

6 Files into Icons 161.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-187).

ISBN:

9780804751506

0804751501

9780804751513

080475151X

OCLC:

173748347