Digital Archival Literacy for (All) Historians

For centuries, understanding archives has been key to historians' work. Within the last decades, the increasing availability of sources in digital archives has fostered a growing need to understand how the logics of these influence historical research. Because, even if the digital representatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMedia history Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 251 - 265
Main Author Jensen, Helle Strandgaard
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.04.2021
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
archives
Archives & records
contemporary digital media
Cultural studies
Digital archives
Historians
Historical analysis
Literacy
media historiography
media literacy
methodology
twentieth century
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Summary:For centuries, understanding archives has been key to historians' work. Within the last decades, the increasing availability of sources in digital archives has fostered a growing need to understand how the logics of these influence historical research. Because, even if the digital representations of the individual sources might appear similar to those in analogue archives, using digital archives impacts the work of historians in new ways. In this article, I offer an outline for a digital archival literacy which supports a professional reflection on the everyday uses of digital archives. I propose seeing the shift from analogue to digital archives as a shift in medium, which establishes a new set of logics for the archival production, content, distribution and use. The framework draws upon notions of media literacy developed within the British Cultural Studies tradition.
ISSN:1368-8804
1469-9729
DOI:10.1080/13688804.2020.1779047