digital humanities and digital media

Introduction 31
contributed to a good understanding of the networks. Today, it
only delivers the trades-people for all those start-ups that shape
the human condition through their disruptive technologies way
more than universities do.’
The criticism of the ‘intrusion of capital’ into the sphere of
higher education (Golumbia) is shared by others who fear that
‘differently motivated services outside the institutions of higher
education will first offer themselves to universities and then,
quite simply, fold their academic missions and identities into
vectoralist network services’ (Cayley). The assumption is that
the digital infrastructure of the university will affect its academic
mission: ‘“cost-effective’ and more innovative services
provided from outside the institution’ Cayley holds ‘may then go
on to reconstitute the institution itself. “Google” swallows computing
services at precisely the historical moment when digital
practices swallow knowledge creation and dissemination. Hence
“Google” swallows the university, the library, the publisher.’ Was
this inevitable? Is it still stoppable? Golumbia is not surprised
‘that academics, who often rightly remain focused on their narrow
areas of study, were neither prepared nor really even in a
position to mitigate these changes.’ Montfort is less reproachful
and displays more hope for resistance within academia: The
research Google is conducting is, ‘by the very nature of their
organization as a corporation, for the purpose of enriching their
shareholders. That by itself doesn’t make Google ‘evil,’ but the
company is not going to solve the scholarly community’s problems,
or anyone else’s problems, unless it results in profit for
them. A regulation won’t fix this; we, as scholars, should take
responsibility and address the issue.’
While Nadin implies that the humanities and the university
in general are being rebuilt according to the paradigms of
computer science and big business, in Hayles’ view ‘these fears
either reflect a misunderstanding of algorithmic methods […]
or envy about the relatively abundant funding streams that the
Digital Humanities enjoy.’ She does not exclude the possibility
that Digital Humanities is ‘being coopted by corporate funding
to the extent that pedagogical and educational priorities are