The night of the bug: Technology, risk and (dis)organization at the fin de siècle

Abstract Euro-American forms of social organization are increasingly performed via ever more intricate computer systems and networks. Against this backdrop, the corrosive spectre of computer failure has assumed the role of the ‘network society’s dreaded other, the harbinger of dis-organization and dis-order.At the close of the twentieth century anxiety over the probable effects and consequences of the so-called ‘Millennium Bug’ provided a stark contrast to the then prevailing internet euphoria.This article suggests that the Bug, and the extensive (and costly) efforts that were dedicated to its extermination, provide us with a useful illustration of the ways in which IT applications have been used to think and enact particular, historically and culturally situated, notions of (human and technological) agency, organization, manageability and expertise.