1999: Edward
L. Ayers, "The Pasts and Futures of Digital History" (Links
to an external site.)
2004: William
G. Thomas III, "Computing and the Historical Imagination," (Links
to an external site.) in A Companion to Digital Humanities
2006: Dan
Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Ch. 1, ”Promises
and Perils of Digital History,” (Links to an external site.) in Digital
History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web
2009:
Douglas Seefeldt and William G. Thomas III, "What is Digital History?" (Links to an
external site.) in AHA Perspectives
2016:
Stephen Robertson, "The Differences Between Digital Humanities and Digital
History" (Links to an external site.) in Debates in the
Digital Humanities
2019: Sheila
A. Brennan, "Digital History" (Links to an external site.) in
NCPH's The Inclusive Historian's Handbook
What is
Digital History? (JAH Interchange, Thomas, et al.)
“Digital
history might be understood broadly as an approach to examining and representing
the past that works with the new communication technologies of the computer,
the internet network, and software systems.” (Thomas)
I believe
that this is a great definition of digital history and is broad enough to
include all software and projects that would be included. From quantitative
datasheets, to GIS, videos, photogrammetry, and even search tools and self-publishing,
digital history can be applied to old research or be entirely digital from the
start and ask a new question through the lens of digital tools.
How does
21st century Digital History theory/practice differ from earlier applications
of computer technology to historical research, such as the data-driven
quantitative history (“cliometrics”) of the 1970s? (Thomas)
Digital
history started in the 1970s as cliometrics, or quantitative history, and
consisted of statistical methods. Quantitative history was controversial during
the 1970s and through the 1980s because it focused too much on quantitative
data and computers without much human analysis of the datasets. Digital history
today starkly contrasts that of the 1970s because it has expanded rapidly with
the creation of the internet and the advancements of hardware and software.
Digital history is not just about quantitative data, which can be useful in its
own right, but encapsulates anything adapted to the computer systems.
How does
Digital History differ from Digital Humanities? (Robertson)
Digital
history is a subset of the digital humanities. Digital history is centered
around a few digital tools that benefits historical research. Text mining and
topic modeling are two tools in the digital historian’s toolbox as well as
search tools, web-based mapping programs, and quantitative tools. Digital
Humanities has often been described as being too broad focusing on too many
tools whereas each discipline within digital humanities already know and use a
small set of digital tools to aid in their specific workflow. Often thought of
casting too wide a net in terms of digital tools for only one area of study.
Thereby digital history is a more specified subset of digital humanities with
fewer tools and with research and skills highly focused in regard to those
tools. There has been a call, however, to shift the view of the digital
humanities into being a more interdisciplinary approach of learning the tools
in your specific field and then engaging with other disciplines within the
digital humanities.
What are
the promises/perils of doing Digital History? (Ayers, Cohen &
Robertson, JAH Interchange)
Some of the
promises of digital humanities are capacity, accessibility, flexibility,
diversity, manipulability and interactivity. Capacity and accessibility being
the two most obvious with more information than ever before being stored onto a
computer or the internet with a greater ease of access than before the computer
era. More people can visit digital archives from across the world for little to
no cost, can access academic journals, and are not restricted by a physical or
cumbersome limit that computers can alleviate. The information we access on the
web is also incredibly flexible in its presentation, instead of a limited presentation
of text and pictures in person, the humanities can present itself as text,
photos, videos, sounds, 3D models, data sheets, and any combination of these
forms. Diversity focuses mainly on the low barrier of entry for everyone to
enter information on a topic of their interest. It is just not professors who
are able to maintain blogs on their research but anyone from an amateur in the
humanities to the most esteemed professor. Manipulability of the large amounts
of information stored online are also a possibility that is not shared in the
physical form. Using digital tools to quickly shift through entire journals for
keywords or phrases. Interactivity makes it easier than ever to communicate
between individuals, quick messaging and interactions between professor and
public made the dissemination of information easier. Hypertexuality is the last
of the seven beneficial promises of the digital history, and is simply the free
flow of information in an undirected way
Some of the perils of digital
history can be seen related to its benefits. Information does not last forever
on the internet and with the low entry bar for entering information on a topic,
quality likewise suffers. Additionally, the way people approach information
online with manipulability change the way people read thus lowering the
requirement to read through the text the author crafted in the way it was
intended. Lastly, the problem of inaccessibility comes into play, everyone does
not have a computer and skills required to use it. Monopoly, too, runs along
with inaccessibility with corporations taking interest in and profiting off of
the flow of information with questionable care of authenticity.
Can we
make Digital History, as a field, more inclusive? (Leon, Brennan)
Digital
history has taken steps to become more inclusive by way of free to use
publishing, editing, and by including histories about marginalized groups. However,
this is also how digital history can improve its inclusivity, the best stories
are told by the people themselves and the jobs of professors and museum curators
will best reflect minority stories if they are the minority themselves.
Creating, publishing, and collaborating have become large advancements to reach
and spread more stories but institutionalizing the more marginalized stories
would be the best path for reaching inclusivity.
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