1. Introduction: the Digital and the Humanities
Computers, digital tools and the Internet have been radically changing the way scholars work, collaborate and publish their research and supported the creation, the storage, the analysis and the dissemination of data and information.
While many areas of study within the natural, medical, and social sciences have a long tradition with these technologies, most of the humanities disciplines have been more reluctant and have found it more difficult or inappropriate to integrate computational tools that are generally built to perform quantitative analysis.
Even thought in the last years new activities and new research opportunities have emerged from the intersection between the humanities and the world of digital technologies, what we call today digital humanities, represents an undefined and heterogenous set of studies and practices that aims at understanding the implications and the opportunities that digital technologies can provide as media, tools, or objects of study in the humanities [1, 2].
What is sure is that the enormous quantity of information coming from digital collections and in a more general sense the “digital world”, is offering different opportunities to rethink the traditional research activities and tasks in the humanities (Moretti, Manovic...).
These new relationships between the digital and the humanities are rapidly demanding new modes of observation, exploration, and interpretation and in this perspective information visualization and interfaces are becoming essential tools to explore and make sense out of the increasing quantity of available data.
Due to the fact that most of the methods and technologies adopted by the digital humanities come from other discipli...
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...ming from the Internet, not only to study the online culture, but in a more general sense as a unique data source to analyze society and culture (Rogers, 2009).
The situation in the artes and traditional humanities, especially literature and history studies, is quite different. They usually don’t create their own data but they rely on records, whether newspapers, photographs, letters, diaries, books, articles; records of birth, death, marriage; records found in churches, courts, schools, and colleges; or maps. Basically, “any record of human experience can be a data source to a humanities scholar” (Borgman, 2009).
Cultural records and materials are usually stored in libraries, archives, museums or other public and private agencies under a complex system of access rules and, if already digitized, through different online platforms build with different technologies.
Hey, Computer Sciences Stop Hating on The Humanities is a magazine article written by Emma Pierson (2017) for employers seeking programmers and universities with computer science programs in which, Pierson addresses the consequences of ignoring the teachings of the humanities in universities. However, with the emphasis Pierson (2017) places on her ‘‘worrisome” thoughts and “difficult dilemma” she has on “algorithms” in paragraphs three and four and in conjunction with McLuhan’s (2009) philosophy of facing the anxiety that comes with critically analyzing flawed “algorithms” that “Narcosis narcotic” hides (para.16), the issue that Pierson targets is really the dependence that systems place on blind and arrogant programmers of flawed “algorithms” that cause “social disparities” (para. 4). These “social disparities” (para. 4) arise because of the programmer’s lack of education and respect or the humanities in moral decision making that universities can teach.
...g digital museums already exists, because it would allow more people to discover works of art that are much in demand, without having to queue and be surrounded by people. The progresses in digital imagery are going to get even more faultless, but one should remember that it remains a copy, and that nothing is worth being transported by the emotion and the magic of contemplating the work of art itself.
The introduction of the printing press changed society permanently. Along with this invention came the emergence of mass production of texts. Suddenly, information could be efficiently replicated, thus facilitating the dissemination process. Widespread alphabetic literacy, as Havelock states, could finally become a reality. Print media, however, are fundamentally restricted by their physical nature. Enter the Internet, arguably modern society’s greatest technological advancement, with its ability to digitally recontextualize the written word. Again, forever changing the nature of communication. This paper will focus on the web’s functional, social, and cultural remediations of print media. It can be argued that the Internet is a modernized version of the printing press. The web created an explosion in production, self-published content, and new forms of machine art. Through contrasting physical and digital print media, it will be shown that the Internet enhances aspects of the printing press in defining itself.
Web. 27 Mar. 2014. "Digital History." Digital History. College of Education, 2014. Web.
People all around agree that technology is changing how we think, but is it changing us for the better? Clive Thompson definitely thinks so and this book is his collection of why that is. As an avid fiction reader I wasn’t sure this book would captivate me, but the 352 pages seemingly flew past me. The book is a whirlwind of interesting ideas, captivating people, and fascinating thoughts on how technology is changing how we work and think.
Morris, J (2013, October). Digitizing difference. Communication Arts 346. Lecture conducted from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is one of my favorite poems for many reasons, but recently it has started to gain new meaning as I face graduation. I have started to wonder how different my life would be if I had only chosen to travel down one road instead of sprinting down both roads at the same time. When I declared my biology major, my dad expressed concern that I was choosing one possible life and career over another possibility. He said he knew how happy writing made me and he wondered if I was doing the right thing in not pursuing that. He spoke the words I had not yet spoken out loud for myself. “You shouldn’t enter college worried about what you will do when you exit,” said David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, at a World Economic Forum panel discussion last week on the state of the humanities. Rubenstein’s words are true now and they were true then: I should not have worried about choosing so soon. After I arrived at Columbia College, I began taking English courses because I could not take biology courses without at least trying to explore my passion for literature and creative writing. Thanks to time at Columbia College, I started to see the value the required courses of the WPDM major more because of what they taught me about myself than what they taught me about the subject matter. Combined with my classes, my internship experiences have confirmed that I am indeed heading in the right direction. I could not become a successful writer and biologist without the valuable set of skills that I have gained through my time at Columbia College. I believe I made the right choice by choosing both roads.
In the latter half of the twentieth century society, culture and science evolved visions and capability around the common prefix ‘cyber’. It took on several virtual, computational, functional, scientific, sexual and criminal connotations. In the 21st Century, many computational notions have been replaced by ‘e’ to mean ‘of computer’ - however ‘cyber’, represented in music, words and films emerging at this time, which communicate the content of culture at the time, not simply technology – have not become ePeople, eMusic or eFilms, but remained postulated in cyberculture.
Grossman, Lawrence K. The Shape of the Electronic Republic. Composing Cyberspace. Richard Holeton. United States: McGraw-Hill, 1998, 311-327.
Turkle, Sherry. "Digital Nation." Interview. PBS. PBS, 22 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 May 2014. .
The technological aspect of digital art often leads to questioning of whether or not it can be considered art. Digital art has been accepted and embraced by the commercial and entertainment industries for many years, but is finding it much harder to become part of the fine arts community. Digital art has many hurdles to overcome before it will be fully accepted by the mainstream tradit...
Compared to books and journals, internet research saves time that the researcher would have needed to put into searching through various books and articles for information. It is also cheaper and more convenient than having to search for credible experts to interview. Internet research conducted from a single location has the potential to retrieve a wide range of relevant and direct information which makes research faster and more efficient. The many stages of review a book is required to pass through before publication helps to verify the credentials of the author and the authenticity of the facts contained in publication. While this may be an advantage, it also poses the problem of making it difficult for authors and publishers to keep up with new findings. On the other hand, internet materials can be updated easily and made read...
Media and technology have an ever increasing role in how we as humans communicate with one another as well as help impact our culture. The printed word, once able to be mass produced helped usher in an era where where people could seek the education and reading skills they desired, brought print and knowledge to the masses. Now with the more common use of digital communication and media outlets, our options for information and communication are almost entirely unimpeded. Technology allows us to live through multiple Renaissance type periods filled with ever growing pools of information from which to share, and culture changing happenings coming from every corner of our connected world.
Print publishing has been credited for the long standing preservation of literary works of numerous authors, both past and present. This system of preserving the intellectual nuances of personages, customarily through books, is what affords for the realization by future generations of what the past looked like, in terms of the events and people that characterized it. In essence, books, according to Dixon-Fyle, link the idea or sentiments of authors to certain fundamental cultural and societal practices that enunciate the background of a particular civilization over time. However, the recent spate of technology that announced the entry of the digital age has cast a dingy decadence on the future of printed books, and the whole conventional practice of print publishing. The question that many academicians, librarians and other relevant stakeholders have constantly barraged themselves with is; will the digital age render print books obsolete?
Hence, any debate of the future becoming digital must take into consideration the reaction of the media to the technological innovations of the world, from the Personal Computers (PC) to the smallest Smartphone. Although mass media has increased with technological innovations, what driv...