Scholars began to wrestle with the methods of mass-media art, corporate platforms, and entertainment, wondering if they should ignore them, make use of them, or counter them. The struggle is still underway.
Burdick et al. “One: Humanities to Digital Humanities,” in Digital_Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 9
This quote in particular grabbed my attention because I am fascinated by the incorporation of scholarly efforts into digital platforms. With the internet constantly growing and constantly offering new methods of communication and display, I have been interested in different fields of study presenting their research and imposing questions. Being a statistics major and having taking several STEM courses, I’ve seen how the internet has allowed for numerous presentations such as data visualization of research findings, displays of microscopic organisms, interactive economic models, and more. However, I have always wondered if and how the humanities utilized the internet and if it was being used to the same frequency as scientific-influenced areas of study. This quote encapsulates what I have learned so far during this class. Seemingly, humanities is starting to shift more and more importance on being digitalized and emphasizing the internet’s accessibility. Using various interactive websites to display galleries, charts, data, and 3D model artifacts, I believe the field of humanities is embracing its creativity and artistic values.
With the various fields of humanities presenting research and findings through creative ways on the internet to be more engaging, accessible, and comprehensible, I am reminded of my particular area of study and potential line of work. With the aspirations of being a data scientist or data analyst, I’ve enjoyed internship experiences working with data and statistical models. In particular, like the field of humanities, I had to utilize the internet to make my own initial findings and research interesting and accessible. Rather than presenting plain data or complex graphs, like humanities, I relied on the internet to present. Similar to how humanities has 3d-modeled various artifacts, I’ve used 3d modeling to present data and I’ve used other visualization software to present my own findings in creative fashion.
One area of inquiry I’m most interested in is the importance of creatively presenting the research and discoveries in humanities onto the internet. As I’ve seen recently with humanities-related research on interactive websites such as RhythmOfFood, I’m enticed by the scholars of humanities and their creativity behind presenting all forms of discovery. With forms of presentation including colors, graphs, interactive galleries, maps, animations, and much more, I’m excited to continue experiencing the new ways humanities utilizes the internet.
