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Barcella_Balbi_2026_HopkinsPress_Accepted Manuscript_More Than a Label
Journal article

More than a label : naming the World Wide Web as an enabling practice, 1989–96

  • Barcella, Deborah ORCID Istituto Media e Giornalismo (IMeG), Facoltà di comunicazione, cultura e società, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • Balbi, Gabriele ORCID Istituto Media e Giornalismo (IMeG), Facoltà di comunicazione, cultura e società, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • 2026
Published in:
  • Technology and Culture. - 2026, vol. 67, no. 3, p. 945-971
CERN
Name-making process
Organizational culture
Technology naming
The Web
World Wide Web
WWW
English This article examines the process of naming the World Wide Web that took place at CERN between 1989 and 1996 to argue that naming was not a secondary act of branding or representation but a constitutive part of technological development. Drawing on archival records, press coverage, and interviews with early web actors, it reconstructs how a nameless internal project evolved through provisional, contested, and unstable designations before “World Wide Web” emerged as a workable compromise. The article shows that naming functioned as an enabling practice: it made the project discussable in meetings, recognizable within CERN’s organizational culture, and legible to funding structures and public discourse. At the same time, failed attempts to standardize spellings, abbreviations, and trademarks exposed the limits of institutional control over emerging digital technologies. By foregrounding naming as a material and organizational process, the article reframes how technologies acquire visibility, legitimacy, and stability within the history of computing and communications.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Information, communication and media sciences
License
Rights reserved
Open access status
green
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1336474
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