Draft:Theory of Digital Objects
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Digital objects are editable and possess distinct attributes that differentiate them from physical artifacts and non-digital cultural records. These attributes define their functionality and interaction within the digital realm.
Editability
[edit]Digital objects are editable, enabling continuous modification and systematic updates. Unlike physical artifacts or non-digital records, which are resistant to alteration, digital objects allow rearranging, adding, or deleting elements. Regular updates are characteristic of repositories like databases and transaction systems, designed to capture and accommodate change dynamically. This pliability contrasts with the rigidity of non-digital media, where information becomes static and difficult to manipulate.
Interactivity
[edit]Digital objects offer interactive capabilities, allowing users to explore embedded functions and information without necessarily altering the object. Interactivity enables contingent exploration based on user choices, distinguishing digital artifacts from the fixed responses of physical objects. This feature opens up possibilities for navigating options and unbundling mediated services, such as browsing web pages.
Openness and Reprogrammability
[edit]Digital objects can be accessed and modified by other digital objects, such as software tools acting on images. Beyond basic editing, experts or hackers can access source code to alter the underlying logic governing a digital object's behavior. Openness enables interoperability, facilitating deeper integration and interaction among systems. Unlike physical objects, digital objects exhibit a unique interconnectedness where codes, systems, and artifacts intersect.
Distributedness
[edit]Digital objects are rarely confined to a single source, existing as temporary assemblies spread across networks and infrastructures.[1](Haider and Sundin, 2010). Distributedness makes them borderless and fluid, enabling combinations of diverse components and procedures. This attribute underscores the significance of linking and assembling processes while diminishing the standalone importance of individual elements.
By combining these attributes—editability, interactivity, openness, and distributedness—digital objects transcend traditional boundaries, offering a dynamic and interconnected functional profile within the digital ecosystem.
Compositional Texture of Digital Objects
[edit]The unique qualities of digital objects:-
- Editability
- Interactivity
- Openness
- Distributedness
stem from both cultural predispositions and intrinsic technical characteristics. While cultural attitudes toward malleability and customization shape their use, the essential nature of digital objects is rooted in their compositional texture, particularly their modularity and granularity.
Modularity
[edit]This structure allows local manipulation of components without significant impact on the broader system, enabling reorganization, reshuffling, and recombination of elements. Modularity represents the technical realization of breaking down en bloc objects, facilitating flexibility and adaptability.
Granularity
[edit]Granularity complements modularity by focusing on the fine-scale constitution of digital objects.
Digital objects are composed of minute and identifiable elements, such as items in a digital list or software library, which can be independently manipulated. This granular structure derives from their numerical and binary nature, enabling operations as detailed as data mining or editing individual components.
Interplay of Modularity and Granularity
[edit]While modularity emphasizes functional independence, granularity highlights the resilience and decomposability of digital objects. Together, these principles form the generative matrix of digital objects, underpinning their dynamic attributes. Analog systems lack this granular organization, relying on interwoven structures that resist decomposition and reassembly.
Implications for Social Practice
[edit]The modular and granular nature of digital objects fosters interconnected information environments and flexible interactions between users and systems. However, this malleability introduces challenges, such as destabilizing traditional relationships between tools and human experience. The fluidity of digital objects may undermine accountability and sense-making, posing risks to the stable object world that supports human activities.
Case Studies: Archives and Search Engines
[edit]Two fields illustrate the dual-edged nature of digital objects:
- Archives: Digital archives aim to preserve digitally born culture by freezing the inherent fluidity of digital objects. This reinvention of archival practices seeks to maintain the stability and identifiability of cultural artifacts over time.
- Search Engines: In contrast, search engines focus on the findability of digital objects rather than their preservation. By prioritizing access and discoverability, search engines shape cultural records and mediate user interactions with information.
Together, these approaches—freezing and finding—highlight the transformative impact of digital objects on cultural preservation and perception within the interconnected digital landscape.
The objects coming together on the web:-
For the sake of documentation,a large range of societal practices depend on artifacts like books, imagery and documents, collected by authorities for the sake of documentation.[2] (A. Assmann, 2008). However, cultural artifacts undergo constant change over time, due to this identifying them becomes a point of concern . In order to make sure that the mentioned artifacts are not rendered obsolete over a period of time due to old software and hardware[3] (Young, 1996; [4]'Brindley, 2009).
References
[edit]- ^ Haider, Jutta; Sundin, Olof (2023-12-07). "Sociomateriality". Information Literacy Through Theory: 149–164. doi:10.29085/9781783305919.010. ISBN 978-1-78330-591-9.
- ^ Assmann, Jan; Barbu, Daniel; Matthey, Philippe; Volokhine, Youri (2008). "Entretien avec Jan Assmann". ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions. 3 (1): 7–12. doi:10.3406/asdi.2008.889. ISSN 1662-4653.
- ^ Young, Liz (1996). World Hunger. Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis. doi:10.4324/9780203284674 (inactive 4 September 2025). ISBN 978-0-203-28467-4.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2025 (link) - ^ Brindley, Paul J. (2009-10-28). Mobile Genetic Elements in Metazoan Parasites. CRC Press. doi:10.1201/9781498712880. ISBN 978-0-429-08948-0.
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