Cognitive Communities, Media, and Genres
From a theoretical standpoint, I found Philip Agre’s article quite interesting. Although I had difficulty following certain sections of the article, especially “Economic considerations,” I could definitely appreciate his notion that democracy, on a day-to-day level, manifests itself in cognitive communities. Media, and the genres that media make possible, serve as a way to link the individual members of these communities. Agre’s ideas, in essence, are similar to Benedict Anderson’s notion of “imagined communities”; however, the communities that Agre envisions seem to be much more fluid: indivduals can be members of multiple cognitive communities, and each of these communities can evolve in response to new thought leaders, new media, and new genres.
What impressed me most about the selection from Digital History was the discussion of the variety of genres of on-line history, as well as the variety and the range of quality within each genre. After reading about the many forms that history takes on-line, I am left with a feeling that I have seen only one iota of what is out there on the internet.
I was also interested in comparing the list of major genres in the JAH Web Review Guidelines with the genres discussed in Digital History. Where would Gateways and Journals/Webzines fit into the genres discussed in Digital History? Would Gateways be considered archives, secondary sources, or teaching resources? Or, are they actually a common form that some archives, second sources, and teaching resources take on? Also, is it fair to consider Journals/Webzines as a kind of discussion or organization? Or, are they a hybrid of both genres?
Finally, a few words about the sample web sites. I liked how Valley of the Shadow and Our Favorite Things featured site maps that resembled musuem maps. The former contained lots of records, but it was not particularly easy or enjoyable to explore them. The latter offered little information, other than the images, but it was more enjoyable to explore the site. I like how French Revolution seemed to represent the on-line equivalent of a symposium. It featured primary sources, papers written on those sources, and a discussion between the authors of these papers. Above all, I thought the National Geographic site featured the greatest amount of information, combined with the slickest production values. It was fun to explore this site, and I actually spent more time exploring it than any of the other sites.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
I agree that some of the sites were not easy to follow in the sense that digging through primary sources whether online or in the basement of a library is not,at times, the most fascinating occurrence. However the fact that documents are available through the web is astonishing to say the least. One only has to think of the increasing number of people that have access to images and other primary source documents becuase of the internet and digital history sites to appreciate Valley of the Shadow.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:29 am
I also saw the similarities between Agre and Anderson, but I felt like some of Agre’s communities seemed to be a bit of a stretch. I wondered if some of the community members would be aware that they were part of a community.
I loved the site of French Revolution images, partly because I am fascinated by that history, and partly because of its structure, which you pointed out, seemed almost like a symposium. As for the other sites, they all provided a great amount of information, though some was harder to get to than others.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Phil, your comments and Linda’s comments about Benedict Anderson are interesting. I agree with you that Agre’s online communitities are more fluid. I think of my mom - she’s not a very technical person, but she likes to read and post to an online message board that discusses issues in my hometown. She goes on the site every day and what’s interesting is that people post to the site who used to live in the town but have moved or never lived there to begin with. So what could be limited to participants of a small geographic locale became an online community that crossed local and state boundaries because of common interests.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Whoops - The last reply was actually posted by me.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:31 am
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