Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Social Networking and History

I believe social networking (such as Facebook) is currently "popular memory"/folklore opposed to offical history, but social networking could someday be the basis for official history. I have archaeology professors who consider blogs/e-mail/social networking as future sources of historical data to be sifted through and interpreted. I think it all depends on who is determining what is relevant "history" -- will they consider messages by a politician more seriously than an artist?

Facebook has created a social revolution on the internet, so even though it's printed/published text it is more tied to popular memory than official history because the internet is not a fixed center. It allows personal expression by everyone, not just the government. But I wonder if power (to write history) is now more controlled by corporations/private businesses rather than national governments?

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