When is a record; A Research Framework for Locating Electronic Records in Infrastructure

This chapter presents a framework for archival researchers to account for the transmission and materiality of electronic records research by locating them within the infrastructures of contemporary, networked communication.  
The first section contextualises the research need by presenting the importance of layers of infrastructure to the creation and circulation of born-digital records transmitted across wireless networks. The second section presents a research framework for studying new information communication technologies and emerging electronic records contexts, and re€ects on why such a framework is necessary and how it has been constructed. The framework, which builds  upon records continuum theory and the concept of spacetime, takes up the logical and physicalaspects of Thibodeau’s digital object model and applies Trace’s micro ehnographic approach to networked communication, has three elements: Layers of Infra structure and Context, Examining Networked Recordkeeping, and Engaging with Information Retrieval. The third section presents the case study of Kurt Mix and the British Petroleum Oil Spill in order to illustrate the possibilities of how this framework might be applied in archival research.