History and the New Media

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Journal Entry 1

A Few Thoughts on the Holodeck

Question 1: For some time now, historians I greatly respect have cited Hamlet on the Holodeck as an essential point of reference for anyone who wants to publish scholarship on the Web. It was quite surprising therefore, to find that her categories and presentation actually serve to undermine this goal. There seems to be no room in cyberspace for the deployment of rhetorical (as opposed to narrative) strategies to make an emotional connection to the reader and create an authoritative argument, and no grounds for making a qualitative judgment about the material presented beyond the reader’s response.

This problem is inherent in the four characteristics she elucidates for the digital environment—the procedural, participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic. Her discussion of the encyclopedic aspect of the web, for instance, tears the word “encyclopedic” away from its roots as an authoritative collection of knowledge. Aside from a passing reference to the great library of Alexandria, her description of the large quantities of information available through computers seems to privilege size over quality or character. Murray’s description of the other three characteristics also reflect this bias against scholarly discourse, by privileging the emotional over the intellectual. Her discussion of procedural aspects is focused on establishing rules in an interactive environment; her discussion of the participatory aspects focuses on creating a narrative form and structure that engage the reader on an emotional, not intellectual, level; and the spatial characteristic focuses on the creation of a “navigable space” in order to create an emotional connection to the reader.

Her description does open the way to some valuable guidance for Web authors, as these characteristics provide some additional considerations for what constitutes good writing. She does a good job of delineating the dangers of shaping a narrative (or argumentative) structure that is too avant garde or too innovative, which will inevitably lose the audience. At the same time, this need to set limits has to be balanced against rising reader expectations. With the vast resources of the Web behind an author, the reader is less likely to be satisfied with a presentation converted straight out of the word processor with just a few desultory links. In that respect she does a great service to anyone interested in publishing something on the Web.

Nevertheless, the characteristics that Murray elucidates for the Web—which underpin the distinction between additive and expressive works in the medium—need to be approached with great caution. Insofar as they privilege the heart over the head, they make it more difficult to gauge the quality of a historical treatment. She creates an analytical structure that is too far removed from historians’ needs. So even as her categories can provide useful insights into what the designers of various web sites we’ve reviewed are up to, they provide little help in determining how to make them better works of history.  Within her framework there is little to discern the differences between HistoryChannel.com and the Valley of the Shadow Project.  Both are encyclopedic in her terms, both offer spatial structures for movement—the History Channel to and through exhibits, Valley through rooms in a Jeffersonian building—and both try to engage the reader in a procedural-participatory experience—with both inviting the reader to engage in a self-directed voyage of discovery along certain paths.

On her terms, it seems that the difference between an “additive” and “expressive” treatment can only be measured by the reader’s response. If the HistoryChannel.com or Valley of the Shadow project engages and excites the reader, it rises to the exalted level of an expressive use of the form. By the same token, if the material is fairly inert, and the reader is not engaged on an emotional level through the medium—like the Brainerd Kansas site—it would only seem to be an additive use of the medium. But as our previous discussions suggest, the form is not the only standard that requires consideration.

However interesting and engaging Murray’s treatment might be, we need to look to other authors—like George Landow and J. David Bolter—for examples and categories that do not close our horizon to the Internet’s potential for historical scholarship.