I am left with many thoughts after\nTony Guidone\u2019s presentation in class, mainly reminding me of one of our tasks\nfor the class, to see history \u201cin it\u2019s context.\u201d His example when giving tips\nabout keyword searches, for example, stressed the importance of considering\nhistory this way. He showed us how crucial it can be to consider even the\nlanguage of the time period we are researching in order to get accurate\nresults. He did this by showing us that when he searched \u201cChina,\u201d he was met\nwith few results, but was very successful in finding relevant hits when\nsearching \u201cEast Indies\u201d instead. This reminded me as well of Ian Milligan\u2019s\npoint in explaining the illusion we are faced with when using keyword searches;\nwe are under the impression that we are conduction an all-inclusive,\nall-encompassing, omnipotent search when in reality we are missing every\nresource that hasn\u2019t been digitized, and more importantly we are inadvertently\nmissing large portions of every resource that hasn\u2019t been digitized to 100%\naccuracy. This made me aware of how my keyword searching, both academically and\nrecreationally, is affected by that very illusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Milligan pointed out, \u201cfalse positives,\u201d\nor hits that aren\u2019t actually relevant but carry the searched keyword, are\neasily dismissed, but \u201cfalse positives,\u201d or resources that are relevant but for\none of many possible reasons was not retrieved by the keyword search, could\nhave been exactly what we were looking for and may have made a significant\ndifference on our results and conclusions. It is obvious how this dilemma could\nhave disastrous effects in academia, but I can see how it affects even my\nrecreational use of digital engagement. For example, when I search on Instagram\nthe first name of someone I recently met, I could be met with countless results\nof people with similar names and all combinations of various last names. This\nbounty of results is almost deceptive though- it\u2019s relatively easy for me to select\nany result seemingly close and examine further, and it\u2019s quite simple to just dismiss\nthis result and move onto the next if it isn\u2019t who I\u2019m looking for. However, if\nthey are known on Instagram by a nickname I\u2019m not aware of, or if their Instagram\nusername doesn\u2019t include their name at all, my search may harvest an optimistic\nnumber of results, but in actuality could not be retrieving that one single person\nI went through the process to search for. In this instance, keyword searching\nwill have failed me entirely if I haven\u2019t considered various alternative\nkeywords to search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tony Guidone showed us two examples in which digital media projects created the possibility for social change. Digital projects like Mason\u2019s Legacies and the Enslaved Children of George Mason provide the necessary historical context behind primary resources that allow us to compare and contrast views that are controversial and problematic now, but at the time were widely accepted views. This can certainly alter our perspective on historical figures like George Mason, who is known for many accomplishments, but has and is himself a controversial past. Another example of a kind of digital project I\u2019ve witnessed impact social change through providing historical context is a simple but meaningful one: a Twitter thread on the \u201cUntold Stories of 9\/11\u201d from the perspectives of peoples of Middle Eastern descent living in the US who faced discrimination and mistreatment as a result of the generalized fear many Americans faced after September 11th<\/sup>. Projects like these enable us to reflect on history and see it from the perspective of individuals whose stories were overlooked at the time. They create social change by encouraging us to change our perspective now and put action into that clich\u00e9 saying, \u201cdon\u2019t let history repeat itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that note, digital media has the potential to provide significant detail and context, such as videos and pictures from September 11th<\/sup> that visually and audially portray the emotion of the historical event. In comparison, Tony Guidone showed us the sad reality of digitizing older resources, through the use of German coins. Digital renderings of the coins would not portray the physical observation necessary to realize the different weight of the coins due to the changes in metal uses during the war. This leaves us without crucial historical context in knowing how the German people must have felt using recently minted coins at the time and noticing the change in weight. This dilemma forces us to rely on the publisher of the source to provide minute, explicit details about the original source. Otherwise, we are literally losing parts of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Milligan, I. (2013). Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997\u20132010. The Canadian Historical Review<\/em> 94(4), 540-569. University of Toronto Press. Retrieved September 16, 2019, from Project MUSE database. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mason’s Legacies. Accessed September 9, 2019, from http:\/\/masonslegacies.org\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Enslaved Children of George Mason. Accessed September 9, 2019, from https:\/\/ecgm.omeka.net\/<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am left with many thoughts after Tony Guidone\u2019s presentation in class, mainly reminding me of one of our tasks for the class, to see history \u201cin it\u2019s context.\u201d His example when giving tips about keyword searches, for example, stressed the importance of considering history this way. He showed us how crucial it can be … Continue reading “#2: The Stories Left Untold”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-searching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}