Wednesday 11 September 2013

Digital History is "the use of digital media for historical practice, presentation, analysis and research." the definition of the term is difficult to define as it rapidly emerged and led to new methods and formats being developed. However, the term can be identified by the representation of historical content which can be accessed to the general public on the internet.

These posts on digital history were created during one of my final year undergraduate modules, "Digital Histories." Digital History has become much more prevalent and this module let us explore how the past is being represented on the internet and whether or not this poses significant problems in the writing of academic history. 

As a profession, historians have traditionally  avoided sharing their work and the writings of history with the general public; for fear it will disturb the epistemological foundations of writing history. This is because historians tend to believe that only they can objectively write history and so the profession has retreated to within academic institutions, journal articles and within academic publications. As David Starkey once stated in 2002, History today is, 

"a private conversation amongst dons in academic cloisters."  
Some historians have tried to resist this by engaging with the public and writing books to appeal to popular taste or share their historical knowledge through television and the internet. Due to the large increase in history data, documents and academic work being posted online the module explored whether or not books hold more authority than the internet or whether the internet holds just as much authority. The following blog posts in this page were written whilst I undertook the module.