API practices and paradigms: Exploring the protocological parameters of APIs as key facilitators of sociotechnical forms of exchange

Abstract

The use of application programming interfaces (APIs) to develop and design technological forms of structured exchanges is an increasingly prevalent practice at present, allowing data to be shared, automated, circulated and redistributed in wider computational culture. Despite acting as key infrastructural elements and connectors, the prominence and importance of APIs is still under recognised. Via a brief survey of the history of API development and then closer regulatory and technical analysis of the long standing, non-profit net.art generator (nag) (1997), this study aims to bring to the fore key sociotechnical elements of API design. Particular attention is given to protocological forms of control as these can be enacted through APIs via the regulations, terms of service and specific operational processes and affordances of fetching networked data. net.art generator uses the Google API and URL and specific attention is given to Google’s setting of terms for exchange. In doing so, we give a few suggestions for how anyone working with APIs might think through certain key questions around the creation and use of APIs, particularly in regards to the parameters of openness, accessibility and terms of inclusivity that APIs set upon practices of knowing, sharing, participation and exchange.

Automation, APIs and the distributed labour of platform pedagogies in Google Classroom

“…APIs are a central integrative mechanism for platforms. They are formal collections of programming conventions and data restrictions that allow external applications to integrate into a platform (Helmond, 2015), and provide interoperability in distributed computing environments (Snodgrass & Soon, 2019). Thanks to the mediation of APIs, third-party entities (e.g.…”

‘Blockchain Good, Bitcoin Bad’

“…Digital media represent a rich context for analyzing the discursive dimension of technology, however, they also present significant challenges. Issues of accessibility (Snodgrass & Soon, 2019), data ownership, openness, and control might limit the amount and the quality of data made available by digital platforms for social research (Bucher, 2013). Moreover, an uncritical approach to digital media might lead scholars to further reify a western-centric perspective on innovations and technological diffusion.…”

How streamification challenges the Royal Danish Library’s collection of cultural heritage

“…Vestergaard (2017) suggests we do several smaller pilot tests to determine the types of data that the API outputs, and whether two identical requests collect the same content. Snodgrass and Winnie (2019) argue that an API provider, and users of a particular API, should always work to consider the forms of programmatic accessibility, applicability, interoperability, transferability and durability that are provided by APIs. Th is includes API-collection.…”

“…Th ey note that APIs are important for the way in which they can give some sense of how data is being circulated, and made accessible Article: How streamifi cation challenges the Royal Danish Library's collection of cultural heritage Andreas Lenander AEgidius and inaccessible. By studying and paying attention to the makeup of their structure and parameters we can also begin to detect the priorities, and thus politics, of the streaming services (Snodgrass & Winnie, 2019, conclusion section para. 3).…”