Digital Media blog

Both of the articles main points instruct historians and archivists on gathering archival material through digital means, especially when tragedies and conflicts strike.  In “The Future of Preserving the Past”, Cohen explores the differences in how historians collected data for archives after Pearl Harbor, 1941, and September 11, 2001. He found that after Pearl Harbor, archivists used people’s letters and diaries to understand the feelings of the American public towards the attack on the Hawaiian naval base. Cohen finds a distinct difference in the way archivists find material for capturing the American opinion and reaction to the September 11 events, because a majority of the people use emails, blogs and websites rather than letters and diaries.  Therefore, the future in preserving past events lies in digital media. Brennan and Kelly look at the importance of digital archives and the need to make them accessible to public audiences so the public can retrieve and input information into the databases easily.  The authors find that people will input information into a digital archive only if the people do not find the website confusing and difficult to use. In their archive over Hurricane Katrina, Brennan and Kelly find that a website that people find accessible and well-organized allows for more entries. However, resources in digital archives are limited to the population who own the technology and have the desire to contribute to the archives. Despite the downsides of digital archives, I believe that technology in current years is becoming more available to the general public. More and more people store their personal information online and a majority of people access information through online sources. Therefore, digital media is relevant, not necessarily just in disaster areas, and historians will continue to create them. It is important that historians make sure that their websites provide easy access and try to include as many perspectives in their entries as possible in order to make a complete archive, especially over key events that pertain to the nation as a whole.