New Media: Wallace and Smith blog

Questions about New Media

Each of these articles raises the vital questions that are still raised in the history profession today. That is, what should be the role of new technologies in presenting/producing history?

While some of the technological speculations Wallace had may seem dated, it is interesting to see how much of the technological advances he embraced at the time.

About the dangers of losing museum crowds to the Internet or other forms of electronic medium, I would hazard that many of the people who would seek history solely online would not be typically visit a museum in the first place. While it would be easy to say that the increasing pace and easy access provided by modern living could inspire more opportunities for laziness, the people who go to museums will not give the real experience up for a virtual one. If anything, it might inspire more people to visit actual museums.

Is it just me, or did the JASON project sound kind of odd. Who is going to tour a museum at 9 o’clock at night? I can just imagine drag races down the galleries of the Louvre.

I thought it was interesting to see how Wallace did not seem to embrace the possibilities of the Internet as much as he advocated for the select use of technology in museums. While he wrote this at a relatively early point in the history of the Internet, he seemed to know enough about its capabilities to discuss it.

Carl Smith seems to look at the possibilities of the Internet in a more favorable light. He discusses his involvement in creating an online museum site for the Great Chicago Fire and discusses using the Internet to do serious history. Though he acknowledges that there are hindrances to using the Internet, he believes that the lack of constraints that the Internet provides is more of an advantage than a disadvantage. Multimedia presentations, the ability to use artifacts not available to traditional museums, and interactivity are all benefits he puts forth.

However, the important question of whether one can do serious history on the Internet is the main focus of this article to which Carl Smith says yes. According to his definition of history using primary sources to provide clear historic information to a larger audience, the Internet is a more than adequate medium for conducting serious history.

These questions about history in the digital medium to me are intriguing in the fact that it is not based on some of the more familiar grounds for academic historical debate. Rather than discuss the merits of whether it is more appropriate to look at history from a cultural, social, etc. standpoint the discussion focuses on the medium. While one could argue that there are many forms of presenting historical information (museums, paper, oral), technology is unique in the fact its increasing importance in all of these forms. For example, oral history in the modern, academically accepted sense would not be possible without the advent of vocal recording, which has gone from reel to reel, to cassette, to now having the capability to store thousands of recordings on a single server. The question of what medium history should be presented on is an important one and should continue to bring about fascinating and heated debates.