Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

History

Major Professor

Brian Connolly, Ph.D.

Committee Member

David K. Johnson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Kyle Burke, Ph.D.

Keywords

Computers, Florida, Gaming, Neoliberalism, PLATO, University

Abstract

The PLATO network, a collection of mainframe computers, terminals, and educational software, has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention in the last decade as a social precursor to the modern internet. Existing histories have neglected to investigate the ways in which PLATO and its related business enterprise worked to accelerate the shift in university governance away from classical liberal ideas centering the public good and towards a more profit-centered neoliberal rationality. By tracing the rise of PLATO in Florida universities, this paper argues that PLATO aided and was aided by the shifting priorities of American universities in the 1970s and 80s, as seen in the ways faculty and administrators discussed and imagined the PLATO system upon its arrival. Additionally, this paper highlights issues in the historiography of computing and proposes a more holistic model for writing about computer networks which balances all the relevant actors and their conflicting aspirations for the system in question.

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