Digital History Research Articles

Remediating the ‘Golden Age’ of Library Music in a Digital Context

Drawing from the concept of remediation (Bolter & Grusin, 1999), this article maps out the proto-digital and digital history of library music with a focus on music of the 1960s and 1970s, a period known as its ‘Golden Age’. The authors interrogate how recorded music libraries materially reinvented themselves – or were re-mediated – through the decades. The first part of this article surveys prevailing industrial practices and discourses of the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that library music firms embraced possibilities offered by digitisation from the outset, contrary to prevalent industry practice. The second part engages with ‘Golden Age’ library music’s online life and reinventions. By paying broader attention to its reception and transformation by fans, collectors, and creative practitioners, we resituate library music practices within a longer techno-cultural continuum from proto-digital to digital. We argue that the remediation approach helps theorise these myriad lives of library music across extended spatiotemporal eras. Remediation is not a linear reading of musical and technological history; rather, it acknowledges the synchronicities and porosities that exist between old and new by emphasising the moments of return and repetition central to the genesis of library music and to our affective experience of it.

Digital narratives and historical representation: A review - analyzing how digital mediums are revolutionizing the way history is taught and perceived

This study critically examines the transformative impact of digital narratives on historical representation, focusing on how digital mediums have revolutionized the way history is taught, perceived, and interacted with. Employing a systematic literature review and content analysis methodology, the research analyzes data from peer-reviewed articles, books, and digital platforms published between 2013 and 2023. The study's objectives include exploring the emergence and evolution of digital narratives in historical education, assessing their methodological approaches, and evaluating their educational, cultural, and technological impacts. Key findings reveal that digital narratives have significantly altered historical representation, introducing interactive storytelling techniques, democratizing historical knowledge, and integrating advanced technologies like AI and VR in historical education. These narratives have enhanced accessibility and engagement but also presented challenges such as the digital divide, the need for standardization, and potential biases in historical interpretation. The study concludes that the future landscape of historical representation in the digital age is poised to balance traditional and digital methodologies, emphasizing inclusivity and technological innovation. Recommendations are provided for educators, policy makers, and technologists to collaboratively create an accessible, accurate, and engaging digital historical landscape. Future research directions include investigating the long-term impacts of digital narratives on historical understanding, developing pedagogical strategies for digital history education, and exploring ethical considerations in digital historical representation. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamic role of digital narratives in shaping historical knowledge and education in the digital era.

The potential of Batu Urip cultural heritage site for nature-based physical activities and learning assist-ed by digital media for children

Cultural heritage sites and nature-based environments offer significant potential for educational tourism and experiential physical learning, particularly for children. Batu Urip, as a Cultural Heritage Village, has extensive historical heritage and local traditions. The aim of this research is how to design the Batu Urip cultural heritage site as a historical digital media for nature-based physical activities and learning. The research method used is a descriptive method with a qualitative approach. Data sources supporting this research include interviews, field observations, and reference sources such as scientific journals and books. History digital media for nature-based physical activities and learning will increase children’s enthusiasm for learning history through this digital history applied at the education level. In addition, local history will elevated because it has been digitally modified. In addition, children’s excitement is not only in learning but also in being able to take the good values contained therein. Based on data analysis, it is shown that Batu Urip Cultural Heritage Village has an excellent opportunity to become a means of learning local history at the educational level. The digitalization design of the Batu Urip site can be developed through nature-based physical learning on historical digital knowledge, which can add enormous knowledge and insight. Children will understand better and think more creatively with the presence of high-value local History in their environment. Keywords: Batu Urip cultural, Heritage site, Nature-based outing class, Digital media

The Dangerous Art of Text Mining: A Methodology for Digital History by Jo Guldi (review)

The Dangerous Art of Text Mining: A Methodology for Digital History by Jo Guldi (review)

PjBL-based digital history model to improve historical concept skills and historical consciousness

Digital history-based project-based learning (PjBL) in history learning is a learning medium that can provide a special attraction for students who can improve historical concept skills and historical awareness. However, there are still many teachers who have not used it, so it is very important to study it. This research aims to analyze the influence of the digital history based PJBL model in improving historical concept skills and historical awareness. The method used is quasi-experimental with two classes, experimental and control. The population used class XI high school students in Lampung, Indonesia and the sample size was 213. Cluster random sampling was used to determine sampling, while data collection was in the form of test instruments. The test instrument questions were analyzed using the gain score and Kruskal-Walli’s test to determine the increase in historical concept skills and historical awareness with the help of statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) 26. The research results confirmed that digital history based PjBL was effective in increasing historical concept skills and historical awareness with a high score, making it the best choice to overcome obstacles in history learning.

Analysis of the need for digital history teaching materials for the merdeka curriculum in senior high schools

<p>Changing from the 2013 curriculum to a Merdeka curriculum means that learning tools, including teaching materials, must be adjusted to appropriate learning outcomes and objectives of history subject. This research aims to determine the need for media, content, and language teaching materials. This research uses a qualitative study with a descriptive approach. Primary data sources were obtained from informants, namely Malang teachers and high school students, and observations in the field. The stages of data analysis are data reduction, data display, conclusion, and verification. The results show that the need for teaching materials in terms of media, namely: availability of wifi in schools and student internet quota, preferred font types are Calibri and Arial, preferred colors are bright colors, all students have smartphones with medium-high specifications, and videos and images in teaching materials must be explicit. There is a need for teaching materials in terms of content. Namely, the curriculum used is the Merdeka curriculum. Students prefer independent study, and some questions stimulate students to think historically. There is a need for teaching materials in terms of language. Namely, the language used as an introduction is Indonesian, and the language used must be easy for students to understand.</p>

Digital history at street level: mapping the past in Darlinghurst

Digital history at street level: mapping the past in Darlinghurst

Digital History of Law: Principles of Methodology

Objective: to theoretically substantiate the basic principles of methodology of a new interdisciplinary area of socio-humanities – the digital history of law; to demonstrate the heuristic potential of digital technologies in legal historical sciences.Methods: the study is based on systemic, formal-logical, and comparative general scientific methods.Results: it is concluded that the methodology of the digital history of law is based, first of all, on the source-centric approach, which considers a source as a macro-object of humanitarian and social sciences, through which information exchange takes place (O.M. Medushevskaya’s concept of cognitive history). Secondly, it is based on the combination of traditional methods of legal history with digital techniques and technologies and methods based on them – within a research program of historical-legal (historical-juridical) source studies. The article attempts to summarize the existing digital technologies and techniques, as well as methods based on them, as applied to legal historical sciences; their heuristic potential is shown in case studies.Scientific novelty: for the first time in the Russian legal history science, the author substantiates the methodology of the digital history of law as an interdisciplinary field that studies the past of state and law using digital information and communication technologies and tools.Practical significance: under the shifts in socio-humanities (digital, linguistic, visual ones, etc.), which have become relevant in recent years, and the development of the digital type of social communication, methodological approaches to obtaining new knowledge are changing, new interdisciplinary branches of scientific knowledge are emerging, as well as new requirements for the qualification of researchers. The ongoing changes affect legal historical sciences: digital history of law is formed as an interdisciplinary area within digital humanities, at the confluence of history, legal science, and information science. The understanding and application of digital technologies and the scientific cognition methods based on them in legal historical research open up new opportunities for legal historians in determining the directions of their scientific research and obtaining new scientific results. This ultimately expands our understanding of historical and legal facts, phenomena and processes.

Recasting Uncle Billy

Social media have become platforms for attaching new meanings to the past. On Reddit, the community known as r/ShermanPosting has critically reexamined General William Tecumseh Sherman and the political meanings of the American Civil War, a conflict in which he played a major role. Content on r/ShermanPosting positions the general as a unionist and an accidental champion of civil rights. Redditors have employed this image to combat far-right rhetoric from other corners of social media. This article analyzes the content of r/ShermanPosting, particularly the user comments and popular memes that circulate on this site, to argue that netizens are reinterpreting the past and using digital history to make sense of the highly partisan political environment of the 2020s. Deeper collaboration with modern scholarship on the Civil War could enhance the meanings of content produced on this platform to offer an even more robust form of digital history. Above all, r/ShermanPosting demonstrates that memes, images paired with humorous captions, can make the past accessible online in humorous but meaningful ways.

Comparative analysis of Generation Z's digital history literacy in history education majors on Java Island: A study of history digital literacy

Comparative analysis of Generation Z's digital history literacy in history education majors on Java Island: A study of history digital literacy

The design methods meshwork: Activating the Design Methods Group Newsletter through digital history

This article elaborates a computationally enabled approach to the study of design methods in 1960s North America. This entails the construction, visualization, and analysis of a digital database built from entries of the Design Methods Group Newsletter, a periodical published monthly between 1966-71. The article proposes a workflow that combines methods such as topic modeling and network visualization to activate the Newsletter as a source of anecdotal and informal knowledge, and to enable histories of connectivity and transaction that may elude archival investigations on singular actors or institutions. In doing so, the article contributes arguments and techniques for the study of design methods as a complex social, technical, and intellectual meshwork. The meshwork brings discursive themes, techniques, actors, and institutions at the same level of investigation and allows for layered cartographies of the field that advanced the systematic study of design and ushered in the development of early computer applications.

REAL-WORLD VALIDATION OF A MACHINE-LEARNING ALGORITHM PREDICTING TREATMENT STRATEGY FOR HIP OSTEOARTRITIS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming more powerful but is barely used to counter the growth in health care burden. AI applications to increase efficiency in orthopedics are rare. We questioned if (1) we could train machine learning (ML) algorithms, based on answers from digitalized history taking questionnaires, to predict treatment of hip osteoartritis (either conservative or surgical); (2) such an algorithm could streamline clinical consultation.Multiple ML models were trained on 600 annotated (80% training, 20% test) digital history taking questionnaires, acquired before consultation. Best performing models, based on balanced accuracy and optimized automated hyperparameter tuning, were build into our daily clinical orthopedic practice. Fifty patients with hip complaints (>45 years) were prospectively predicted and planned (partly blinded, partly unblinded) for consultation with the physician assistant (conservative) or orthopedic surgeon (operative). Tailored patient information based on the prediction was automatically sent to a smartphone app. Level of evidence: IV.Random Forest and BernoulliNB were the most accurate ML models (0.75 balanced accuracy). Treatment prediction was correct in 45 out of 50 consultations (90%), p<0.0001 (sign and binomial test). Specialized consultations where conservatively predicted patients were seen by the physician assistant and surgical patients by the orthopedic surgeon were highly appreciated and effective.Treatment strategy of hip osteoartritis based on answers from digital history taking questionnaires was accurately predicted before patients entered the hospital. This can make outpatient consultation scheduling more efficient and tailor pre-consultation patient education.

Digital History in Central Asia: Initiatives, Regional Specifics and Community

This paper explores the development of digital history initiatives in Central Asia, focusing on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. It examines the challenges, opportunities, and trends within digital humanities in the region, emphasizing the importance of incorporating postcolonial perspectives and practical digital methods for research and cultural heritage preservation. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, including literature reviews, interviews, surveys, site visits, and case studies to provide a comprehensive analysis of current digital history projects. Despite the growth of digital humanities in Central Asia, the paper identifies obstacles such as underrepresentation in international forums, limited research infrastructures, and the prevalence of Western or Russian viewpoints. Significant attention is paid to the development of the digital history community in Central Asia and the study of its needs. The article highlights the potential of digital humanities to decolonize historical narratives and enhance cultural heritage preservation through innovative means like 3D technologies. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of developing region-specific frameworks and fostering collaboration to advance digital history in Central Asia.

USING “SMALL DATA” TO MAP HOW MEN’S RIGHTS CAME ONLINE (WORK-IN-PROGRESS)

While the advent of the Internet can be seen as a “revolution” in how social movements communicate and organize, digital methods and materials do not necessarily constitute a “revolution” in how we study movements or their histories. My paper enters this discussion by suggesting a "small data" approach for studying the early digital presence of the men’s rights movement, and its transition from print to digital media. I compare two unique data sets involving print and digital archives to map out the geographical locations of men's rights groups and adherents in the early 1990s. I demonstrate how: 1) there is significant overlap between the print organizations and early digital spaces for men's rights activists; and 2) men’s rights communities in North America were often concentrated in areas like Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, and the North Eastern Seaboard. Ultimately, I argue that print materials, “small data,” and non-computational methods are still valuable tools to study social movements and their early digital histories.

Digitally Mapping the Indian Day Schools and the RG10 School Files Series in Canada


 
 
 This article explores the process of creating a digital history resource on the topic of the Indian Day School system in Canada. It provides an overview of how the website www.indiandayschools.org was created by a team of history educators who built on the work and legacy of Indigenous activist Raymond Mason. The new open-access, inquiry-based resource displays all 699 recognized Indian Day Schools on an interactive map and integrates thousands of optimized files from Library and Archives Canada’s RG10 School File Series. This article details the challenges we encountered while undertaking this project and how digital Indigenous history can be a powerful tool for reconciliation.
 
 

Telling Hoosier Stories: Digital Queer Public History in Indiana and the Nation

ABSTRACT: The IMH interviews Dr. Eric Gonzaba, assistant professor of American Studies at California State University Fullerton, about his digital history projects, Wearing Gay History and Mapping the Gay Guides, and about doing digital queer public history in Indiana and the United States.

The Use of Historical Sites in The City of Palu as Objects of Historical Research and Learning Based on Digital History

Utilizing historical sites for object research and teaching history through digital history are crucial since historical sites are one of the primary sources of historical information and may describe events in more detail for the benefit of participant education. As the capital of Central Sulawesi Province, Palu City offers a number of historical sites that can be used as research subjects. Studying history in Palu offers a good balance between the site's content and what is taught in high school curricula. One of the guiding principles of implementation is the use of historical sites as sources for learning and objects for study in a supportive curriculum. That issue became the rationale for why Palu's historical sites are important for research and how much of them may be used as sources. Look it over. Examine This goal is to understand the significance of Palu's historical landmarks for object learning contexts and utilization tactics in learning-based digital history. Approach investigation This method is descriptive and qualitative. Fieldwork observation, surveys, interviews, and excavations were used to gather data, along with a variety of documents from pertinent publications and journals. Outer aim from the analysis of results This is how a number of locations' legacies might be used for object study and historical education among participants in material change and sustainability. Learning digital history through an internal site use approach can be accomplished in four steps: 1) introduction, 2) observation, 3) discussion, and 4) findings. Similar to level readiness technology (TKT), historical sites are anticipated to be used as study objects and for teaching history based on digital media. The purpose of this is to introduce participants to the site while educating them, and to disseminate information to the public through digital media. The public will find Palu City's historical landmarks more and more fascinating, making it possible for them to become a destination for integrated historical tours.

Julia Timpe, and Frederike Buda, eds. Writing the Digital History of Nazi Germany: Potentialities and Challenges of Digitally Researching and Presenting the History of the Third Reich, World War II, and the Holocaust Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. Pp. 231.

Julia Timpe, and Frederike Buda, eds. Writing the Digital History of Nazi Germany: Potentialities and Challenges of Digitally Researching and Presenting the History of the Third Reich, World War II, and the Holocaust Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. Pp. 231.

Homo-Loggatus. The Anthropological Condition of Historians in the Digital World

Computerization has created a digital ecological niche where humans live in interconnection that modifies their Epigenetics. Within this hyper-datafied virtual space, the logged-in agent enhances their intellectual and rational abilities, giving rise to a new cognitive entity. Humans are evolving towards a new anthropological status that shifts the terms of the Digital History debate from History to the historian, compelling the latter to reflect on the positions of Fichte and Schelling regarding the mind-body-world relationship (ecological niche). This reflection leads to the possibility of overcoming the crisis of History imposed by presentism and the necessity of redefining the research methodology based on the new vision of the interconnection between the mind and the digital niche as an investigative tool.

Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism: Close and Distant Readings of Political Terror in Swedish News and Fiction During the Cold War


 
 
 The digital history project ’The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism’ (2022–2025) examines the cultural meaning-making of political terror in Swedish nonfiction and fiction during the Cold War, a critical period for the formation of the international discourse on terrorism. To explore the Swedish ‘cultural imaginary of terrorism’ is to study how a society makes sense of terrorism and itself in relation to the phenomenon through figures of thought, frames of reference and fantasies in, among other things, national newspapers and periodicals. This paper gives an overview of the project, demonstrating our integrative use of distant and close reading methods through a pilot study of elements of the cultural imaginary of terrorism as represented in the conservative periodical Svensk Tidskrift 1945–1991. Our exploratory analysis focuses on the extraction of relevant texts, the visualization and mapping of the discourse through the development of key terms as well as individuals, places, groups and states associated with political terror and terrorism. We conclude by stressing the benefits of an integrative research design drawing upon complementary perspectives: how our text mining methods allow us to identify significant patterns in the text data and how our historical expertise allows us to single out aspects that call for further investigation.