Gardner and LaPaglia:
This weeks essay in G&L dealt with the September 11th Digital Archives. This essay focused on the development of the internet in creating an outlet for people to experience history. In the essay, the writer, James Sparrow, quotes Randy Bass in saying, "the web makes possible, 'the novice in the archive'" (400). This is what the internet has done for us. It has opened the gateway for anyone to be able to comment and influence what history was. This is both a good and bad thing. An example of how it is good is the September 11th Digital Archives. The creators had the difficult task of balancing the need for contemporary history with the emotions of a current disaster (403). They created a website where people could tell their first-hand accounts of what happened in their lives on that morning in September. This was an excellent essay and look into creating an historical portal for modern events.
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| Mickey Mouse. Image Courtesy of When in Time |
Mickey Mouse History:
This week, Mike Wallace, keeps up his onslaught of the Reagan administration and their attempts to destroy history. He throws out examples of this such as Reagan removing the old portraits of Jefferson and other founders and replacing them with pre-New Deal presidents such as Calvin Coolidge (250). Then Wallace focuses on Reagan's view of history through the lens of Hollywood. Wallace believes that Reagan only wanted the history that Hollywood created for him The last section was an interesting examination of the controversy surrounding the Enola Gay bomber plane. This was the aircraft that dropped the "little boy" on the city of Hiroshima. This plane and the exhibition that the NASM made were bombarded with controversy and was an example of public history gone wrong.
Web Readings:
Digital keys and the video Big Data showed how modern data control and advanced analytics are becoming the perfect tool for history. They are not only tools for business or sports such as baseball and basketball, but can be used to create reasons why Civil War battles were won based on geography, or they can be used to recreate a digital version of Rome such as one of the readings told us. The final reading was about the Flickr initiative with the Library of Congress. This seems like a good idea in theory. Expose the public to these historical photos and generate interest in our collective past. However, like so many good ideas, this went array The public gains access to these photos and creates rude and inappropriate comments on these photos. Also the public lacked the historical context for many of these photos.
There are still two videos that I have not yet touched on. The first exposed me to the reality that the Fuhrer was very interested in academic articles and blogs on the Internet. The second was a look at how dumb stuff that people record now will haunt them at a later date. I simple don't let people record me doing anything. This is how I avoid that embarrassing fate. For people take videos on a completely different route than their original intent...
It was interesting reading about Reagan and his attempts to change history to a more Hollywood view; I had no idea he had been an actor, and the changes he made during his presidency. Your comment on avoiding digital embarrassment later was a good point; people do interpret videos differently, and often come up with conclusions that are contrary to the original intent.
ReplyDeleteGood blog Shem. What really is going to be funny in about 20 years are the people of your generation running for political offices and all this stuff on the net coming back to bite them. In 20 years will you be able to find anyone who has made it through life without something found on the net that they did and didn't remember it. My Mom always told me, "never do anything in public you wouldn't do in church". I think she was way ahead of her time.
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