“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Although academics should prefer to read a thousand words above just looking at an image to draw conclusions, there might still be some truth in the above mentioned phrase. In most cases, imagery is very powerful to send a message across or convey emotions to the viewer. It is therefore not strange that it has…
The last blog already. And what better way to start it then with a quote from Margaret Mitchells Gone With the Wind? For this last blog I want to summarize what I have been trying to do with all these past blogs. When I started to do the course Digital Media, Society and Culture the class was told to do all these…
So, all these weeks I have been blogging about all these different ways to make history fun and more modern using digital means. Today I would like to look at a more serious approach. I want to get a spotlight on the different learning networks and different ways that you can use nowadays to learn about history online. So, all these weeks…
Games with historic themes have been popular since the early beginnings. Popular historic game titles are Command & Conquer, Rome: Total War and Age of Empires. One of the game studios that has been popular lately is Paradox Interactive, a Swedish game studio. They made many successful historic games in the past and are still making new titles and expansions. Currently their…
Usually I write this really upbeat blog, but today will be different. So prepare yourself for a change of pace. Normally I talk about all the advantages that the digital world entails, but for today I would like to focus on the downside of the digital world (when it comes to history). But why is the digital world bad for history? In…
“An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.” This definition has been given to the word by the Oxford Dictionary. But to really get a feel of the meaning it is better to look at the somewhat dramatic definition that the Urban Dictionary gives meme: “The…
Probably one of the coolest digital historical projects I’ve ever run into is the Venice Time Machine. Before we talk any further, you should watch a short YouTube video they made, because that will preempt a lot of explaining. You can stop at 2:20 and skip the credits.* The main thing is this: the reconstruction of the Rialto district in Venice over…
May 2 1968 riots broke out in France. Demonstrations started at Paris University and soon spread all over the country, drawing in more students, factory workers, left-wing political parties and artists. Protests, occupations, strikes, barricades and marches against The Establishment and dominant ideologies like capitalism lasted for the rest of the month and had a major impact on French society. Maybe it…
In the blog I wrote last week I talked about the fact that the field of studying old cultures is a somewhat old-fashioned one. And while this is accurate for most of the field, there are also some initiatives in the digital world to make (ancient) history a bit more accessible. In today’s blog I want to shine a light on how…
When a person dies in a movie, you have this chilling moment where the eyes gloss over and lose their shimmer. I get to experience this chilling moment almost daily when I tell people what I study. Now you might be wondering: “What is this girl studying that is considered THAT boring?” Well here it goes. I am currently a student of…