History of the Web: a workshop at CERN organised by the Institute of Media and Journalism

From 5 to 7 February 2025, Gabriele Balbi, Deborah Barcella, Martin Fomasi and Petra Mazzoni, from the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) of USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, in collaboration with CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) and with the Communication History Section of ECREA, organised the workshop "Communication Networks Before and After the Web: Historical and Long-term Perspective." The event brought together approximately seventy international scholars to explore the history of communication networks from various perspectives. These included technical and political aspects, sustainability, and the role of users, with a particular focus on the birth and spread of the World Wide Web, which originated at CERN.

The workshop marked the final phase of the research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), titled "The Origins and Spread of the World Wide Web. Rediscovering the Early Years of the Web inside and outside the CERN archive (1989-1995)", directed by Prof. Gabriele Balbi. Thanks to the analysis of the CERN archives, the research has uncovered new sources and unpublished materials, enabling us to reconstruct the conception, description, and promotion of the Web during its early years, both within CERN and beyond.

One of the highlights of the workshop was the opening round table, which featured Robert Cailliau, François Fluckiger and Pier Giorgio Innocenti, pioneers in the development of the Web at CERN between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Their stories offered a personal and unprecedented perspective on the challenges and opportunities that characterised the early years of the most famous internet service.

Another important moment was the keynote speech by Nicole Starosielski (University of California, Berkeley), who explored the topic of infrastructure and the ecology of the Web, proposing a case study on submarine cable networks, their material dimension, semi-hidden but fundamental for contemporary internet traffic.

Participants also took part in a unique walking tour organised by the USI researchers who participated in the project. The aim was to show the places "where the Web was invented" (to quote a plaque at CERN), recounting some of the discoveries that emerged from the research and are described in the papers published and in the process of publication.

For more information about the conference and the programme, please visit: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1422132.