The Internet and Social Media as Sources
The Internet and Social Media as Sources
- Aubrey BloomfieldAubrey BloomfieldDepartment of International Affairs, The New School
- and Sean JacobsSean JacobsProgram on International Affairs, The New School
Summary
The Internet and social media increasingly are becoming sources about the African past and present in ways that will influence to some extent how history will be learnt and the form that methods of historical research will take. Social media have increasingly dislodged print journalism as “the first rough draft of history” and tended to democratize and hasten information sharing and communication. Historians are working through difficult debates about the Internet as a source archive, the usability of websites, and related matters. The debate over online resources and their use in historical and other studies on one level remains unresolved. Nevertheless, online sources add another rich layer to narratives, stories, and perspectives that are already being recorded or told, and in this regard they will add to the storehouse of empirical data to be crunched by future historians.
Subjects
- Cultural History
- Historiography and Methods
