Use of the internet in social history: an example

My main post today, Sharing nostalgia in an internet world, is on my personal blog. You might like to scan that post first before reading this one, although I have written this as a stand alone piece.

Objective

I incorporate history into my posts all the time. This partially reflects my bias as an historian. However, I also believe that the addition of some history adds to interest and context. To do this, I use the internet extensively.

I thought that it might be interesting and perhaps useful if I took a case study to show the process at work.

The Case Study

   On Monday, I wrote a short nostalgia piece, Australian cowboy & indian outfit 1951. The comments generated led me to write a second piece, Sharing nostalgia in an internet world.

By its nature, nostalgia is individual. However, the internet allows for shared nostalgia. This process is not just important to individuals, but affects the writing of social history.

The first post I wrote was personal, although even then I could not resist adding a little history. The comments that followed from kvd and anon were also personal, their shared responses to my memory. In doing so, they added detail. In my responding post I said in part:     

"I wrote it (the first post) because a photo from Cousin Jamie's collection triggered a memory. This led kvd to comment:

Jim don't know if you ever had one but my most treasured possession at that time was a Davey Crockett hat complete with tail. My brother's Labrador stole it then ate it and growled at me when I tried to take it off her. Vivid early childhood memory. Stupid dog. But anyway cowboys and Indians was very big back thereabouts as you say.

Anon responded with a correction and his own memory:

Davy Crockett much later; 1955. Also, who can forget the much desired (didn't have one!) Hoppalong Cassidy tent. We had a much loved and extremely patient ginger cat, who spent some years doubling as a mountain lion/couger/puma. Sat arvo matinees had much to answer for.

kvd responded in turn:

Anon is correct as to dates. "Me hat got et" in either 56 or 57 based on the house we were living in. I had a pair of H C chaps a little after that i think. Proper leather. Cost a fortune these days."

So I began with a single memory of my own, but now have two other linked views.

Issues of Selection and Question in Evidence

As historians, both the evidence we select and the questions we ask of that evidence involve choices. I faced the same issue in writing my follow up post.

The comments by kvd and anon opened up a richness of choices not immediately apparent just from the words. My subsequent post could have gone in multiple directions. Alternatively, I could have written multiple posts.

Questioning the evidence

When I came to look at the evidence, we had a date range. The photo I used was from 1951. Davy Crockett was 1955. kvd's chaps were apparently a little later.

We also had three popular culture figures: cowboys and indians in general, Davey Crockett and Hopalong Cassidy. We had evidence of specific aspects of human life or cultural activity: pets, the arvo matinees, making or buying stuff under the influence of popular culture.

The first thing that I did was to check wikipedia on Davy Crockett. This confirmed that the movie, the thing we saw at the cinemas, came out in 1955. It confirmed the cult status of the man. However, it also reminded me that he died at the Alamo. Here I faced some choices.

The Alamo was itself a big thing that came from the US into Australia. I read books about it, while John Wayne's 1960 movie was popular in this country. The 1955 Davy Crockett TV series helped popularise it, so I could say something about all this to put it into context. Instead, I put it aside to investigate Hopalong Cassidy. Here I came across some new things.

I suppose that I should say here that while I was aware in a personal sense of Hopalong Cassidy, he didn't have the same impact on me, Sure, he was popular, but he never grabbed me in the way that Crockett or the Alamo did. There may be date reasons for this, I will talk about this in a moment, but I also didn't find him as interesting.

As I zeroed in on HC, I realised that I had not known of his longevity. The first book was published in 1904, while HC DVDs are still being released today. I realised just how important merchandising was, something indicated by the comments from kvd and anon. I also realised the connection between TV and the peak in HC's popularity.

Earlier I mentioned the importance of time.

At one point, the post modernist version of history denied the importance of time or, indeed, even the importance of "facts". Both were silly.

In 1951 when Mum made our cowboy and indian suits, she did so from what was available. By the time that the popularity of HC peaked in Australia, there was money available for tents and chaps.

HC's popularity in the US was linked to the rise of TV. Did this apply in Australia? Here I checked the history of Australian TV.

Broadcasting began on 16 September 1956. It came sometime later to regional areas. In my case, my parents did not buy a TV until after I left home. They did not want it to interfere with my studies! So the TV impact of HC was outside my ken. Yet it might well fit with kvd's dates.

Conclusion

All I have tried to do in this post is to indicate a little about the importance of evidence, of time and of selection. I have also tried to indicate a little about the way that you can use the internet to gather evidence and to test. I hope that it is useful.       

Can academic journals survive?

Denis Wright (and @deniswright) drew my attention to Andrew Carr's post Time to open the academic vault. Andrew states: 

Here at The Interpreter, we've tried a few times to run a monthly Linkage feature of the latest academic papers in international relations, foreign policy and the like. But getting public access to these articles is often impossible. I can get them as a uni student, but the journalists, government officials and members of the public who read this site often can't.

As much as subscription access to academic research/journals once made sense, it's time for an end to the system. The general rule should be that if the public pays for any of the costs of an article, a free PDF version should be made available (with costs charged for hardcopies, ala ANU's E-Press system). Private journals can obviously decide their own affairs, but the academic community is only hurting itself, and its long term public support, by keeping its knowledge behind high subscription walls.

I do understand the economics behind current publication systems. When I was CEO of The Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists the money we got from the journal publisher was critical in keeping our journal going. Had we made it freely available, the College would not have been able to maintain publication.

That said, the present system is an effective lock-out for private researchers outside the academic environment. We either don't have access at all, or access at a price that none of us can afford. In theory, my position as an adjunct of the University of New England should give me on-line access, that was one reason for entering into the arrangement, but in practice it hasn't worked out that way.

This effective lock-out is quite serious for it severely limits what we can do in certain areas. Yes, there are work arounds such as physical visits to particular libraries, but we cannot always access as we need, nor is there any point in giving links to particular pieces of work since others cannot themselves follow up.

In The joy of history in an internet world, a post I wrote on my personal blog, I said that I was only guessing, but I would estimate that by 2000 there were at least thirty amateur historians for every professional. Those historians have access to some on-line resources, but are  locked out of almost the entire academic literature that bears upon their areas of interest.

This gives rise to the somewhat odd situation that entire fields of research are effectively broken into two, the formal academic and the ever growing rest. I say ever growing because the quantity of on-line material of all types outside academe continues to grow exponentially. It may not meet the canons of the formal disciplines, its quality may be variable, but that is the material that people access.

The internet offers three special features not to be found in academe. The first is the very large number of people with niche interests whether it be dress, cars or the dating of photographs. I use them all the time. The second is self-publishing combined with interactivity. This gives a degree of instant response and feedback not found in the more formal academic circles. The third linked factor is simply the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which absolute mass provides its own corrective.

I don't think that it's a specially good thing in a general sense that people outside academe don't have access to the journal material. Certainly its frustrating to me because while I am an history populariser, I am till trying to ensure that my formal history meets the canons of the discipline. However, I think that there is a more fundamental problem.

I would pose it this way. How long can the journals themselves survive outside very specialised areas once they cease to have relevance to the broader discourse on a topic?

In many areas we are at this point already. Only things such as Australian Government "excellence" requirements and associated formal career needs keep the articles coming. By the time they come out, the world has already moved on.

Andrew referred to the latest academic papers in international relations, foreign policy and the like. To the journalists, government officials and interested members of the public who might access them but cannot, they cease to be relevant. The academics themselves recognise this. Increasingly, they make material available in other ways.

I said at the start that I understood the economic challenges facing the journals and the associated institutional structures. However, they do need to change, to find ways of making material more broadly accessible. It's not only my personal frustration at the current position. It's their very long term relevance that is at stake.

Postscript

An amplification or really qualification on my personal blog, Academic journals, the shuttle & the internet.

Postscript 2

Fellow history blogger Jayne pointed me to the UNE press release on which the Express story was based. My thanks.

23 things for archivists - a great intro to internet & tools

I was in the process of preparing another round up of history blogs when I came across this one via Archives Outside. It seemed to warrant an entry in its own right.

23 Things for Archivists provides a structured and very useful intro to the web and associated 2.0 tools. Even if you know this stuff, I think that you will still find it an interesting refresher.