Digital Media and the Future

Brown approached his analysis of digital media and its successes and issues by examining past projects that he was apart of and by studying the history of multimedia. He constructively criticized his own projects, while pointing out a major issue in digital media. Rather than allowing users to explore, discover, and make connections, Brown found that the program limited users by defining what information they acquired and how they applied it. By including the history of Frank Leslie’s publication and Barnum’s American Museum, Brown illustrated that interactivity is not new to the twenty-first century. The arrangement of images and artifacts allowed readers and visitors to “find connections, to rearrange, and restage to meet their own social, intellectual, and leisure purpose” (Brown 16). From his investigation of past museums and periodicals and modern examples of digital media usage for historical purposes, Brown argued that history scholars could use these examples to further the use of digital media.

Cohen and Brennan & Kelly discussed the future of historical records in the digital world. Comparing the collection of oral histories, narratives, and photographs pertaining to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Cohen examined the issues and benefits associated with the collection of digital records and how they will be preserved over time. Quality and quantity represented the major concerns though the benefits of digital collections and their complementary position to oral histories made it a useful medium of gathering personal histories. Despite the benefits of digital media, Cohen presented issues of preserving a medium whose deterioration is more fragile than traditional paper collections. Cohen argued that the focus needed to be on the present. With the relatively short life of digital sources, they need to be saved and archived before they are lost. In a complementary piece, Brennan and Kelly used their experiences with the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank to outline the components needed when creating a digital archive. Their article focused on collecting photographs and oral histories in the present, much like Cohen. From their experiences, they offered four main categories necessary when collecting digitally: “collecting content; technical issues; attracting visitors to your site and building trust with potential contributors; and . . . allowing those most directly affected time to heal before they can share” (Brennan and Kelly, 4). Brennan and Kelly illustrated the importance of extending the professionalism of oral history to digital collections of personal narratives. Their article also showed the importance of people in organizing digital collections.

The articles presented the benefits and challenged of digital collections and media. Though they discussed the numerous issues that threaten digital media, they illustrated the importance of the medium to the future of historical scholarship and archives. The articles by Cohen and Brennan & Clark reminded me of our conversation with Gerard at the State Archives. He discussed their hesitance toward digitizing their entire collection, while the articles presented examples of collections existing only in digital format.