What happened to the Semantic Web? Critical analysis of the downfall of the metaphor

Abstract

At the beginning of the millennium, an evolution of the World Wide Web into the Semantic Web seemed inevitable. The Semantic Web concept was conceived as a sophisticated environment with decentralized, meaningfully classified data, available for computer programs manipulation, geared to solve individual’s tasks. The Semantic Web as a metaphor gave rise to a lot of discourse, but the development of the Semantic Web technologies didn’t go as it was planned, causing the dissolution of both the discourse and the metaphor itself. To answer the question of why the Semantic Web metaphor faded in the development of technological praxis, discourse and conceptual metaphors of the Semantic Web are analyzed. The study is based on the critical discourse analysis, the concept of transcoding, hierarchy of the digital-material metaphor in the actor-network theory, and evolution of the linked data technologies of the Semantic Web. This thesis reveals that ‘data-to-data’ computational metaphors were not accepted by societies which shifted away from the idea of open decentralized data. It is shown that the networks of interconnected data as a “stage” of web development have serious limitations from the users’ perspective. Also, interconnectedness of linked data is based on the protocols which require an open exchange, while the internet has drifted towards centralization of data ownership and "walled gardens". In practice, new metaphors of linked data are developing in localized areas and industries. Finally, I conclude that metaphorical transcoding of new digital media praxis requires the culturalization of artificial neural networks from new perspectives.