Given the nature of research in the present day an age, and the nature of my undergraduate study in both Anthropology and History, I am by no means unfamiliar with digital sources, databases, and forms of digitized history. However, my deeper knowledge of digital history is pretty limited outside of finding and accessing different resources, and I’m excited to learn more in-depth about the creation and functionality of these digital sources, and again about historical project born digitally. I also am realizing that I’m not nearly as informed on the history of what is often considered “technology”, and I think it would be useful to learn more about this as well.
“Dash Amerikan” is an exhibit about the infamous Kardashian clan researched, compiled, and presented by authors Jordan Buysse, Alicia Caticha, Alyssa Collins, Justin Greenlee, Sarah Mceleney, and Joseph Thompson. The premise of the project is quite interesting- to dig deeper than the superficial nature and presentation of the Kardashians themselves, and to investigate the deeper impact of the family on the modern social climate, in terms of race, gender, family relations, ethnicity, sexuality, and social class, to name just a few impacts. The authors began by scanning and compiling a series of data from tweets, to elements and actions portrayed within the TV show, to the products which each individual Kardashian of Jenner has created. Other data used to support the project also began to range to studies conducted on the ‘consumer appeal of personalities, characters, licensed properties, programs and brands’, i.e. how the reach of the Kardashians has expanded from a soap-opera-like reality show, to an economic and media-based empire which has come to gain global attention and fame.
The degree to which this project reaches historical importance is rather small, given the presently evolving nature of the family and their relatively recent impact on modern culture and society, but would likely become more relevant within a historical lens (obviously) as time progresses. The tools and techniques which were employed to gather, analyze, and present data for the project though are well implemented and highly relevant to this topic of digital history. Data collected for this project were organized into categories based on their cultural relevance and which facet of influence they fell under (i.e. feminism, race, sexuality), and for the purpose of understanding the project’s purpose, were presented in a large body of text. The presentation of the project is what I think could be improved the most. While it’s not ineffective, the Kardashians are known for being a very animated group, and the digital project might be enhanced a bit with inclusions of the tweets they used as data, or images of the Kardashian clan outside of the site header, and the occasional graphic used to separate sections of the article.
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I think this is a fascinating project because we often don’t think of history as happening right now, even though we make history every day. I think it’ll be very interesting to see how the Kardashians and other influencers like shape our media and how we interact with each other, more than they already have.
This is a really fascinating blog post! It is really cool that this website uses multiple authors and not just one. The information that this website uses is pretty neat, and, the website seems pretty interactive too. Do you think this website is pretty accessible to everyone?