combs

Comment #1: I must admit that when I think of online chats, blogs, or forums the first image that pops into my head is not one of a tenured professor discussing history methodology with a colleague or even graduate students discussing the significance of the weeks readings. The representation that does come to mind however is one of Star Wars junkies discussing their favorite film or perhaps an online chat room for singles looking to mingle. This got me to thinking: “Why is that?” Why are many of us, including myself, conditioned to visualize these images. Is it the media or journalists as Philip E. Agre alludes to in his article “Designing Genres for New Media”? Considering that most commercial advertisements regarding the internet or online forums center on dating services one could conclude, “yes”. The internet is not marketed as a source for historical documents or discussion, but as an avenue which through individuals can buy clothing, books, furniture, and search for movie times.

Comment #2: Another issue that rose to mind in regard to Agre’s article is the relationship between community and internet forums. Agre’s argument seems to come into conflict with previous assertions held by social historians such as Warren I. Susman who in his work Culture as History argues that technology has served to fracture social cohesiveness in the sense that people don’t really talk anymore. For instance instead of someone coming over for a visit or individuals spending time with one another face to face our world has increasingly become more fast paced. Individuals rely more and more on email and cell phones to keep in touch.

Comment #3: Learning more about the history of the web has changed my perception of its importance. It has also led me to ponder the question of just how differently individuals, of my generation, would view the internet if say they had been born ten or twenty years earlier. Having had the resource of the web nearly all of my academic life has in some ways led me to take it for granted.  I can’t imagine a time when computers or the internet were not a daily part of my life. Technology and history have gone hand in hand for me throughout my academic career. Thus to discover that staples such as H-Net have been around for just thirteen years or so, puts things into perspective. In addition the infancy of technologies such as the internet, visualizations, and websites only contribute to debate regarding the appropriate mediums for historical prose and sources. Debate which Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig touch upon in their chapter entitled “History Web.” I found the authors concerns regarding categorization and listings to be quite valid. Simply because they speak to the question of what is deemed important and historical versus what is not. Often times, particularly in regard to the way internet sites are categorized gives a false sense of accuracy to the sites in question and to the individuals using the browser. Debate over the appropriate medium for history in regard to the internet got me to thinking about how that related to concerns historians have regarding history and film. Historians cringe at the reality that most Americans get their history from films such as the New World, Pocahontas, The Alamo, etc. Just as these films are not historically accurate there are numerous websites that claim to be sources of historical fact that are not. How have historians dealt with this dilemma? I know that there are guidelines for websites as in the JAH guidelines used for posting web reviews; however I wonder how well they are monitored or put into place? Is this a point of contention regarding historical websites? I wonder how, as mentioned above, the influence of the media has influenced historians’ perception of the web as a source? And how that has influenced debate over the issue of the appropriate medium for history?

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