mediated history

After seeing all the technological aspects of the web, as opposed to the social elements I usually focus on, I want to do my research on something with quantitative, linear evidence. I was leaning towards public perception of Hacker culture in the early years if the web, but I want to change that to “Ways in Which Hacker Technology has Influenced the Web” or something. I want to look at, specifically, hackers when they got jobs for tech companies, creating more efficient securities based on their experience, or other programs for public use on “hacker ideals.” Many companies today have hired former hackers to work on their software, so I want to see the influence and development of new technologies.

Our history becoming digitized, as explained in Cohen & Rosenzweig’s “Becoming Digital” made me think of the changes in recording history. The most interesting thing I found was the loss of specifics when digitizing information. Music and audio is directly effected, since there is an undeniable loss of quality over time with a lot of media formats, but text and images could also suffer a loss of information. “Should a digitized text capture just the letters and words or also information about paragraphs, headings, centering, spacing, indentations, and pagination? What about handwritten notes?” stuck with me, because I didn’t think about the secondary characteristics of recorded documents and how digitizing would take this out. Becoming digital requires a certain degree of mediation which would alter the secondary characteristics of reading and experiencing history, which could alter the context and intent of the work. If anything, it definitely becomes an added element that must be accounted for.

I’m pretty well versed in going through the historical newspaper databases, I still think the mason archives are not very intuitive and it requires memorization and specifics to find anything. If you can’t remember exact titles or if you are browsing through, it’s hard to find specific, relevant information.

~ by aledere1 on September 10, 2012 .