Technology has infiltrated every aspect of our lives as people of the twenty first century. There is no day to day task that hasn’t become in some way aided by technology. The way in which we communicate as a society has changed substantially, and the rapid nature of this change, shows no sign of decelerating. We can communicate faster and more efficiently than ever before, however there’s many unforeseen consequences surrounding this new age way of communicating. Traditional elements of human communication and the core of human interaction are being lost in the online world. Interaction and how we present ourselves is not simply how we talk, it’s equally how our body talk. Focussing ‘especially on vocalizations other than words, on eye behaviour, facial expressions, hand gestures, and larger bodily movements, including posture’ (King). All of which have no part to play in the words written and read on a screen. Elements of natural communication including sub-elements like body language as well as the instant and organic conversation are being lost as we confine our being to the digital world.
As humans it’s in our nature to adapt to our environments, but what happens when that environment is an online environment? When we are simply a collection of data, a collection of binary information translating to the world who we are. This data is collected by the thing we say, the things we do, and the actions we take online. Everything from informal Tweets about how cute our pet is, to academic articles we publish on relevant platforms, it’s all an equal part of how you define yourself as an online persona. It’s incredibly important to acknowledge the idea that everything we say and do online is constantly defining our digital identity. It’s critical that we hold ourselves accountable for every formal and informal publication we put out onto the internet. The way we present ourselves online not only has effect on our personal lives but has an equal effect on our professional lives. It’s essential for us to take control of how we represent ourselves online.
In contrast to natural communication and organic interactions, we have a huge control over the edition of our self we portray to the online world. Understanding certain elements of your online publications is essential. The purpose of your publication, the platform in which you are publishing to, as well as the audience you intend to interact with, all play essential parts in how you manipulate content, presentation and the formality of your language. As you broadcast what you want to say, whether it’s a status on Facebook, telling your friends or family what you had for breakfast, or a carefully assembled essay or blog, it carries itself as an equal online publication. Following the process of forming an adapted, revised and edited version of digital selves and publishing it for the world to see.
Conforming to social normalities however, keeps us from publishing our professional or academic blogs to our Facebook pages. Similarly keeping our blogs free from information about how to make perfect breakfast soldiers and dippy eggs. Social media presented a platform for global communication and has created an online environment where you can effortlessly connect with anyone regardless of their location. Through the development of these sites there has been a huge change in social networking married with many unanticipated consequences. Social discourse is being brought to the forefront of a lot of questionable boundaries, which as a society, we seem to be testing to the absolute maximum.
Where previous distinctions lay, ‘mass media can be seen as instantiating the blurring of boundaries of various sorts: fact and fiction, news and entertainment, drama and documentary and so forth (McLuhan 1964, Silverstone 1999)’. We are now at a time where ideas that would’ve been completely absurd, are becoming societal norms. Imagine trying to explain to past generations the catastrophic social harm the current president elect of the United States has caused. Resulting from the senseless and irresponsible way which he publishes his reckless thoughts online. An example of absolute ignorance to the impact of your online publications and the consequences on online social dynamics. Anything you publish online, formal or informal, is permanently and enduringly digitally printed which constantly shapes how you, as a person is defined.
Regardless of the negative consequences associated with having such a major change in social discourse, there are positives to the untangling formal nature of political and civil communication. Our generations strength in support for new movements, political bodies and social injustices is second to none in the online world. However, it is becoming increasingly refined to exactly that, the online world. We are emerging as a generation of easily influenced minds with mediocre opinions. There is so much information available, in some ways it can be overwhelming, so naturally many people become complacent.
There is an extreme bravery people receive as they sit facing their computer screen about to Tweet @realDonaldTrump and tell him their strongly worded opinions on why they think he’s unsuitable for the job. This bravery however doesn’t manifest into any positive action, those words simply sit and linger on the internet, perhaps interacted with briefly with someone who shares your opinion but that’s about it. Rarely is there any positive, influential or measurable outcomes which derive from situations like this. There is a broader connection to society through social platforms, however this connection, is far weaker than ever before.
The core of our society is changing rapidly, the structure and natural dynamic of human interaction is becoming unrecognisable. The digitalisation of communication is affecting every aspect of our lives, on a personal, societal and global level. We are becoming increasingly aware of how we create our digital identity and developing our understanding of monitored online publishing. The way we present ourselves as a person online, what we say, what we do and the actions we take define us. Projecting ourselves as the adapted, assembled, premium versions which we publish out into the online world.
Defining digital humanities has been one of the most common concerns held throughout the discipline. Having countless definitions and individual interpretations, alongside multiple contributions which ironically encapsulate what the digital humanities are. Following the natural breakdown of defining anything, I initially explore what the terms digital and humanities imply extended into what they mean together. Following this, exploring the origins of the discipline and how it came to be. Going on to focus on defining digital humanities as an academic – what the digital humanities are and what they are not. Finally, where the future of DH is headed and how the current definitions may develop. Rapid changes in technology, as well as the dynamic nature of humanitarian thought, could perhaps give an explanation as to why there is no concrete definition for DH and why the debate has been such a crucial part of the digital humanities.
Beginning to try to understand what the digital humanities is, would naturally trigger a need to know how traditional humanities as well as the term digital are defined, in their own right, and then how they come together. “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanitarian content and employ humanitarian methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.” (National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965) Comprehensively encapsulating the traditional aspects of humanities.
While the dictionary definition of digital describes the branch of scientific or engineering knowledge that deals with the creation and practical use of digital or computerized devices, methods, systems and the application of this knowledge for practical ends. Combining computational elements with the traditional definition for humanities could almost be considered a contradiction in terms. De-humanizing the humanities and bringing a human element to the quantitative nature of the digital world. Computer sciences more specifically sciences as a whole come from a place of skepticism whereas the humanities originate from the idea of criticism. However, this is where they share a commonality in how questions and solutions surround the fundamental ideas around a lot of their work. This, in fact, gives us an idea of where the definition lies for digital humanities, the intersection between the digital and traditional humanities. It is respectfully defined by the opportunities and challenges that arise from trying to form a new collective singular.
Looking at the origin of the digital humanities allows us to develop an understanding of how it came to be, giving us a deeper appreciation for what now defines DH. The initial practices emerged from the creation of an automated approach to computer-generated concordance to the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Continuing to use mainframe computing to automate tasks such as word-searching, sorting, counting, and listing, scholars could process textual corpora on a scale unthinkable with prior methods that relied on handwritten or typed index cards. Following the idea of bringing elements of traditional humanities and modern computing technologies. This marriage continued as technological advances such as XML and TEI revolutionized the way we interact with traditional humanitarian practices. The development and history behind the discipline are essential to defining digital humanities as it gives a knowledge of our origins. Space was created for the rapidly expanding technological advances to collide with humanities disciplines.
Following on from this, focusing on the present day realities of what the digital humanities are, is essential. As we enter a world where digital literacy is becoming such a normality there is a definite need to be able to distinguish between how computing is integrated into digital humanities more than in other disciplines. The digital humanities have moved away from textual analysis, encoding and mark up and toward an entirely new disciplinary paradigm, convergent fields, hybrid methodologies. Although all of these aspects are fundamental to our discipline their function is becoming redundant. A huge amount of information is accessible through online resources and academic material is becoming digitized. The normality of having an intersection between academia and technology calls for an explicit definition of what distinguishes digital humanitarians from the modern day digitally literate scholar. Seeing the field as the evolution of traditional humanitarian studies, making use of the tools available to us in order to study and explore the limits of the human condition.
Looking at the boundaries for what DH is from an academic perspective gives insight into what digital humanities is defined as for present scholars as well as future digital humanitarians. It allows the gap for an explanation to what the nature of study will be and what the academic duties you will hold in pursuing a degree in DH. We acknowledge that the humanities are a vibrant set of disciplines and subdisciplines that has always had good currency over time – always changing, always reflecting at the nature of the human experience over time via the representation of that experience in its material manifestations. Alongside this, we consider computation or the digital, itself, as a grouping of methods, approaches, technologies, and tools that are themselves dynamically and continually changing.
Bringing the two known parameters of the humanities and technological degrees, presenting a definition for what digital humanities is as a course of study. Even though a full, accurate, comprehensive, and fixed definition of the digital humanities may be elusive, we need to at least have enough of an understanding of what the digital humanities are, in order to be able to move forward and present clarity in the explanation for potential younger generations. Which need to have the incentive to study and inadvertently expand the digital humanities as a whole. Digital humanities in this context gives a definition of a degree where students develop practical skills to flourish in the digital age and explore the impact of digital technology on culture, power, and identity in society. Seeking to discover what is it to be human in the digital age, and the answers will help to shape how we see ourselves and others as humanity becomes more connected by technology. Bringing a grounded and simplified explanation to the complexity of what digital humanities are.
Furthermore, the areas of study as you become introduced and start your academic life as a digital humanitarian are crucial to understanding how DH is defined. The discipline has been formalized across third-level institutions as “Digital Arts and Humanities,” as opposed to merely “Digital Humanities.” Critically important in this Irish instance of the digital humanities phenomenon is the Arts component and the impact of this additional discipline. Balancing the computational components necessary to satisfy the digital side of DH with an Arts elective to incorporate traditional humanities. Intersecting with various elements of digital tools & methodologies, student learning in the digital age and concepts and collaboration in digital humanities. To a certain extent, the future of the digital humanities is sculpted by the contributions of the forthcoming academics entering the field, which in turn will eventually become crucial parts of DH and undoubtedly bring about a whole new variety to the definitions it carries.
Despite prevailingly progressive narratives surrounding the impact of digital technology on modern academic culture, the field of digital humanities is characterized at a deeper level by a more critical engagement with technology. Critical inquiry using computational methods to develop understanding and have the ability to research beyond average capabilities is what sets digital humanities apart. Being able to evaluate sources, use digital tools and research methods as well as a comprehensive understanding of the systems you use distinguishes traditional humanitarians from digital humanitarians. Likewise having the ability to use critic and thoughtful questioning sets digital humanitarians apart from computer scientists.
In addition to this, having an understanding of what the digital humanities are, naturally requires insight into what the digital humanities are not. For if it is so many things, and encompasses so many ideas, how can it be anything? “Digital Humanities is not some airy Lyceum. It is a series of concrete instantiations involving money, students, funding agencies, big schools, little schools, programs, curricula, old guards, new guards, gatekeepers, and prestige. It might be more than these things, but it cannot not be these things” Ramsey proposes that there is a tangible and concrete reality to what the digital humanities are. It’s built upon the various components but these do not actually create it. It’s scaffolding rather than the “thing” itself. He created a silence in the noise of the debates as he outlined what digital humanities is not. By providing a boundary, it creates a distinction between what is included in the definition and what is not. Even though there is a vast and inconclusive explanation to what the digital humanities are, knowing what it is not is crucial.
Additionally, as we continue to formulate answers to the question which has become a fundamental part of our discipline. There is a constant change, a constant reform and development. Technology is expanding at phenomenal rates and doesn’t seem as if it will cease any time soon. The attraction to the digital nature of the field will undeniably become more and more valuable as humans take their place in adapting to our new technologically saturated environment. This will then sculpt how digital humanities will be defined in the future. We are now, as digital humanitarians, defining the field for ourselves but also for future generations. The work and teachings we engage in are going to become part of the very definition we are currently trying to understand. Individual components making up the discipline as a whole, collectively creating and defining ourselves – both individual as well as collaborative, interpretations and contributions.
Furthermore, for a definition to be challenged depending on who is reading, writing or hearing it goes against the nature of having a truly complete definition. There are countless interpretations out there for what people perceive the digital humanities to be. Personally, I’ve come to understand it as the use of digital media and technology, to advance the full range of thought and practice in the humanities, from the creation of scholarly resources to research on those resources, to the communication of results to colleagues and fellow students. As it takes the traditional aspects of the humanities namely research, teaching and learning in areas of traditional arts but does this in digital ways. Making and using computer software, websites and mobile phone apps to teach, or to help researchers and learners. Simply, bringing computational methods to bear on traditional humanities scholarship.
The attempt to form a comprehensive answer to how digital humanities is defined continues to be a rich source of intellectual debate. It doesn’t seem to be coming to a reasonable conclusion any time soon which feeds to the very idea of what the digital humanities are. Exploring the terms digital and humanities themselves, how one understands each individually and how these then come together. The origins of the discipline as well as the academic characterization which it carries. All playing crucial parts of developing an understanding of what the digital humanities are. It is the point of intersection of humanities and computation – itself dynamic and changing like the elements it brings together.
Works Cited
“About the National Endowment for the Humanities.” National Endowment for the Humanities, www.neh.gov/about.
Battershill, Claire, and Shawna Ross. Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: a Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students. Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Berry, David M. Understanding Digital Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Burdick, Anne, et al. Digital-Humanities. The MIT Press, 2016.
Crompton, Constance, et al. Doing Digital Humanities: Practice, Training, Research. Routledge, 2016.
“Digital Humanities and Information Technology.” University College Cork, www.ucc.ie/en/ck118/.
“Digital Humanities: Defining Digital Humanities.” LibGuides, guides.library.duke.edu/digital_humanities#s-lg-box-9927973.
“Evolution of Virtual Economies.” Virtual Economies and Financial Crime, doi:10.4337/9781849809337.00010.
Gold, Matthew K. Debates in the Digital Humanities. University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
Gold, Matthew K., and Lauren F. Klein. Debates in the Digital Humanities: 2016. University of Minnesota Press.
“The Productive Unease of 21st-Century Digital Scholarship.” A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/3/000055/000055.html.
Schnapp, Jeffrey, and Maria Grazia. Mattei. Digital Humanities. EGEA, 2015.
University Communications, and University of Notre Dame. “Breac.” Cú Chulainn Down Under: Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang and the Ambivalences of Diasporic Irish Identity Construction in Australia // Articles // Breac // University of Notre Dame, breac.nd.edu/articles/the-emergence-of-the-digital-humanities-in-ireland/.
This blog was inspired by my wonderful nana mo. I hadn’t seen her in almost two months because I’m in college full time and work every weekend. I call her at least three times a week and she always tells me how much she wishes she could give me a hug and see me face to face. As far as technology goes I don’t think it’s advanced to virtual cuddles. However, it’s almost old news that you can talk to someone face to face through things like Skype and FaceTime.
After trying to explain to my darling nana the idea of video calls for about 40 minutes I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere. So I got on to my 7 year old sister to run down to her house with an IPad and I promised I was going to call her back on Facetime 20 minutes later. If there was ever a moment I wished I could see again and again it’s the pure golden confusion on my nanas face when my sister answered the facetime call from me and I was on the screen talking and laughing in live time. After another 15 minuets of broken conversation because of all the “poor connection” and “video will resume shortly” she decided she needed a nap.
When the call ended it made me totally rethink some of my ideas of technology and I started to explore how different aspects of technology have become so normal for us but remain completely alien to someone like my nana who struggles to leave her house once every two weeks. She’s not exposed to the rapidly developing world of technology in any way, she even struggles to use her microwave. I haven’t stopped thinking about it and it’s inspired me to write a series of blogs relating to the impact of technology. The good the bad and the ugly. I want to explore its presence through all ages and through all generations. From the over 75’s inspired by my darling nana to its impact in the life of my gorgeous 7 year old sister who navigates her way through IPhones and IPads better than me.
I wake up to the sound of my alarm which I set through the “bedtime” app on my phone. I pick up my phone before I even turn on a light or put on my glasses and scroll through my social media feeds for at least 10 minutes with one eye open and the other closed and still pressed against my pillow. After wasting a sufficient amount of time aimlessly scrolling through my phone I get up, wash my face with my Clarisonic cleansing brush, and brushing my teeth for 4 minutes with my electric toothbrush. Within the first 20 minutes of making up I am already exposed to huge technology. Making an already easy life, even easier.
Following this I continue my morning drowning in technology. By 9am I scan in to the lecture with my smartcard, pull up the slides on my tablet and follow the projector to the second. If I hadn’t already met up with my girlfriends I text them or location share to make sure we see each other after the lecture. We go to get coffee out of the self-service machine using our smartcards to pay with invisible money again. When we finish a day of college I normally go to work, I check the due time on my phone through an app and then jump on the next one into town. I swipe on with my leapcard, put in my headphones and head to work.
Unsurprisingly technology embedded throughout all aspects of work life. I work in retail and know for a fact that our whole system won’t function without technology and suffers greatly when our internet connection is weak. Our tills are all electronic, we use security radios, stock check scanners, electronic card payment systems and independent air conditioning systems. These are just an example of the digitally dependent system in my workplace. Finally after work I head home. For the purpose of this blog I observed closely how much technology I was exposed to on a daily basis and the amount that I realized surrounded me was extraordinary and provoked me to want to do a tech detox.
I began to explore the relationship between over exposure to technology and different aspects of our lives. All the way from psychological to physiological. Although this is my current routine and the levels of technology exposure remains constant enough, it hasn’t been like this all my life. I feel like this just confirms further the idea of how much rapidly developing technology is effecting our lives. Whether that affect be good, bad or indifferent.
It’s no secret that a certain level of digital literacy is an essential element in our lives in this generation, by definition digital literacy is the knowledge, skills, and behaviors used in a broad range of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop PCs, all of which are seen as a network rather than computing devices (Wikipedia). This definition is extremely important in understanding what it means in our current age to be digitally literate.
This is going to get slightly academic so if you’re here for lighter reading follow this this link for a softer blog post!
When I started to look a little bit deeper into how essential it is to be digitally literate, the research and knowledge I came across suggested that my previous thoughts were way off the mark. I knew that it was important, through a various parts of our lives, academic, social, personal and professional. There is almost no escaping the digitization of this world, technology is everywhere. If this idea is something that interests you I focused on my own personal digital saturation here.
I’m going to concentrate on how this type of literacy is so important in each of these categories. Firstly academic, there is a rapidly developing need for us as students to be able to use computers, laptops and tablets. Assignments are commonly handed in online, material covered in lectures is available online, the fastest way to contact lecturers and find out any updates about lecture times and locations, yep you guessed it, online. In the course I’m studying specifically as well it’s a huge help to be connected through social media specifically twitter where we all share content using the #UCCDH. Brilliance.
Next and equally importantly, having a common standard of digital literacy has become almost essential for us in our social lives. Social media has become one of the main types of communication. To be very honest can’t even remember the last time I posted a letter or postcard! Not only for internet use but having the ability to use your smartcard is a pure necessity. Calling, texting, voicemails all very basic but all require at least a minimal amount of digital knowledge.
By definition it states that behaviour is also considered an essential part of being digitally literate. When doing research on this I found this extremely interesting. How does one judge if someone’s behaviour is acceptable or not when it come to the use of digital tech? it surely depends on individual standards and morals etc. but there it is in definition.
Being digitally literate is going to constantly change and develop as our continuously changing digital world changes. We as a generation compared to those before us, undoubtedly have a higher level of digital knowledge purely because this is what we have been exposed to. We are all creatures of habit after all. Is this ease of use of digital technology hindering our traditional literacy? Are we going to become fully dependent on technology in these areas of our lives? Is this change welcomes? Big questions.
