The Promise of Digital Scholarship: A Comparison

Most of the articles we have read for this assignment wrestle with the issue of whether or not new media provide an appropriate forum for historical scholarship. Those who ponder the legitimacy of "electronic publication," like Susan Smulyan seem to believe that its capacity for presenting a seemingly endless stream of information might be too much of a good thing. Smulyan describes herself as "steeped in linear thought" and bemoans the fact that "hypertext scholarship" can be severely "disorienting" to people like herself. Still most of the authors are of the opinion that digital scholarship has a role to play if it is subjected to the same standards of "solid research, crisp analysis, interdisplinarity, and clear prose" as print.

One problem with hypertext articles is to know what to call them. For example, David Westbrook describes his "From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County" as an "essay" and yet for those accustomed to traditional essays with a clearly stated thesis, supporting arguments, and conclusions, this article does not seem to qualify. Westbrook even admits that there is no "single overarching thesis" underlying his article and in fact the three "threads" that make up the bulk of the project might be described as three distinct essays. Westbrook insists that the three threads represent different approaches to the same subject and therefore support one another and constitute one essay.

It is possible to easily move back and forth between the threads and there are links in each one which take the reader to a similar topic in one of the other threads. Each thread is color-coded to avoid confusion for the reader who is moving back and forth among them. The ease with which all of this is accomplished would not be feasible in a print article.

Since this is an article about the cultural significance of turn-of-the-century newspaper comics, Westbrook makes the comics themselves readily available by including thumbnails along the right margin of the text. It is possible, therefore, to click the thumbnail to access the comic being discussed in the text. This type of access to primary material would be impossible in any kind of print format except perhaps in an expensive coffee-table book. A slight degree of interaction is possible if the reader chooses to ruminate on the meaning of a caption (e.g., "Disciplining the viewer's eye"), and then clicks the caption. The author's explanation of the caption is provided with still another link to related information in the text.

Westbrook makes the point that much as comics were "new media" at the beginning of the twentieth century so too is hypertext at the beginning of the twenty-first. The real concern for historians of both periods is not the medium itself but how the medium is used to confront issues of "ongoing cultural changes and conflicts." Although linear thinkers might prefer the simplicity and brevity of a scholarly print article, it has to be said that this digital essay provides a treatment of the subject matter and an accessibility to the primary sources not available in print media.

In "The Differences Slavery Made" Will Thomas and Edward Ayers have undertaken what they refer to as "an applied experiment in digital scholarship." They seek in this article to explain the paradox of slavery: the enormity of its impact on American society in the 19th century is recognized and yet studies have shown that slavery did little to create differences between North and South "in voting patterns, wealth distributions, occupation levels and other measurable indices." Their article is based on a detailed examination of the same two counties examined in Valley of the Shadow --one in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania--that had almost everything in common but slavery.

This article does not exploit the potential of hypertext as fully as the Westbrook essay. Since it depends almost entirely on secondary sources and a multitude of facts and figures, there is not the visual potential available with Westbrook's comics. It does provide a wealth of information in a relatively small space and it does allow the reader to move easily between the various sections of the article. The same four links ("Introduction," "Summary of Argument," "Points of Analysis", "Methods") are available on every page. Arrayed at the top are links to "Evidence," "Historiography," and "Tools."

If an author is cited within a paragraph of the text, a link is provided which includes the bibliographic information as well as an excerpt from that source and its relation to the information in the text. In the lengthy Historiography, the same information can be accessed by clicking an arrow at the end of the entry. Included in the "Tools" are a searchability function and a way to read sections that have not yet been examined.

Overall, the strength of this article is that it provides a vast amount of scholarly information and makes that information available in ways that are unique to digital scholarship. Since it relys almost entirely on text, it is much more in tune with traditional print scholarship than the Westbrook article. Its pedestrian approach does not have the same "sex appeal" as other digital articles but perhaps for scholars like Prof. Smulyan this is more a strength than a weakness.