Week 7 - Historians and New Media - “We can compete with anybody–at least I think so.”
Reading through Roy Rosenzweig’s essay on hypertext and history, I think he does present several innovative options for historians that coul shape the way that history is done in the future.
To start with, the first essay that he examines that uses anchored links to take readers directly to the point of the citation within the source allows readers to analyze the context from which the author/historian took their information. I think this allows for closer debate of how we use historical sources. I also wonder if it would shape the way that historians write from sources if they knew that readers could analyze so immediately how the author interpreted the source and utilized it in their work. (By the way, I really need to learn how to create anchored links).
I also wonder if such an immediate connection to, or reliance upon, sources changes the way that historians argue in these articles. Does it simply turn into show and tell, rather than focus on the complexity of the argument? This seems that it could be both a strength and a weakness, as readers can see the evidence very clearly, but might also be distracted from the narrative of the argument at the same time. This also connects with Rosenzweig’s question, “Can you say to a hypertext author that his or her argument is not clearly laid out?” What is a good argumentative structure within hypertext? Does it really change, or is there still a basic level of argument that the article must contain?
Turning to Benjamin Hermalin’s article, I was struck by how scholarly article databases online could be a very helpful thing. I already depend primarily on electronic articles for most of my journal/review reading. His note that from these pages people could link to further discussion surrounding the review/article, made me realize that scholarly databases online have not fully utilized their web structure. I’m sure there are many other helpful connections that could be made to more fully utilize the web in disseminating information in more helpful and interesting ways. I would love it if I could look up a book and it would have a webpage with links to reviews, short summaries, discussion surrounding the book, and/or links to historiographies that mention it. Surely this would be a massive project, but it seems that google or somebody could come up with this in some way that I don’t understand fairly easily.
March 7th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
In response to- “I also wonder if such an immediate connection to, or reliance upon, sources changes the way that historians argue in these articles. Does it simply turn into show and tell, rather than focus on the complexity of the argument?”
I don’t think that this is necessarily the case. If these sources are fully integrated into the argument, pictures, movies, etc., will only add to the argument. If they are not fully analyzed, all these sources become is filler or, as you put it, “show and tell.”