A Trademark Approach to the Past: Ken Burns, the Historical Profession, and Assessing Popular Presentations of the Past

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivien Ellen Rose ◽  
Julie Corley
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Elizabeth Cady Stanton ◽  
Documentary Filmmaking ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Historical Profession

A review of Not for Ourselves Alone, a historical documentary film by Ken Burns about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's leadership of the nineteenthcentury women's rights movement, indicates serious concerns about the impact of historical documentary filmmaking on public understanding of the past. New ways to engage the public in the process of historical analysis and understanding are suggested.

scholarly journals Lockdown Lives: A longitudinal study of inter-relationships amongst feelings of loneliness, social contacts and solidarity during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolien van Breen ◽  
Maja Kutlaca ◽  
Yasin Koc ◽  
Bertus F. Jeronimus ◽  
Anne Margit Reitsema ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
National Data ◽  
Social Contacts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Points ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

In this work, we study how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. We draw on cross-national data, collected across four time points between mid-March until early May 2020. We situate our work within the public debate on these issues and discuss to what extent the public understanding of the impact of lockdown is borne out in the data. Results show, first, that although online contacts are beneficial in combating feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to make use of this strategy. Second, online contacts do not function as a substitute to face-to-face contacts - in fact, more frequent online contacts in earlier weeks predicted an increase in face-to-face contacts in later weeks. Finally, solidarity played only a small role in shaping people’s feelings of loneliness during lockdown. In sum, our findings suggest that we must look beyond the current focus on online contact and solidarity, if we want to help people address their feelings of loneliness. We hope that this work will be instrumental not only in understanding the impact of the lockdown in early 2020, but also in preparing for possible future lockdown periods.

scholarly journals Perfectly Boring? The Public Afterlife of Private Films

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rosina Hickman
Keyword(s):  
Original Form ◽  
Online Video ◽  
The Public ◽  
Video Sharing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Home Movies ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Image Archives ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Exhibition Strategies

<p>Home movies are now viewed in a variety of public contexts, a shift that entails a loss of their original meanings. In order to consider the impact of exhibiting these private documents, this thesis analyses the use of home movies within recycled footage productions, archival curation and online video-sharing. Investigating a variety of formal and informal screening contexts through close readings and archival research, it asks: what meanings do home movies acquire in new contexts? How might the reuse of home movies affect our understandings of their production and the past they portray? Does a perception that home movies could appear boring influence how they are framed or altered for public audiences?  Due to their form and content, home movies may seem ill-suited to public exhibition. Popular discourses about home movies during their heyday of production reveal a widespread belief that they were boring (for outsiders) to watch. While recent literature has assessed home movies more favourably, it has tended to overlook their potential to bore viewers who have no personal relationship to them. Drawing upon theories of boredom, this study argues meaningfulness is the principal factor determining whether a viewer finds a particular film interesting or boring. In their original form, home movies may appear relatively meaningless and therefore boring to public audiences. Recycled footage films re-edit images, however, to create engaging viewing experiences through narrative and affect. While more experimental productions frequently question the evidential value of home movie images, television documentaries tend to encourage audiences to perceive footage as authentic or nostalgic. Narrative and affect also feature in the exhibition strategies of moving image archives. Curated public programmes provide informative and enjoyable viewing for general audiences, but almost inevitably promote certain understandings of the past by offering specific interpretations of selected films. Moreover, the affective appeal of home movie images may outweigh other forms of meaning for viewers, particularly in community or participatory screening contexts. Online video-sharing platforms such as YouTube, which are curated by algorithms rather than human expertise, feature numerous home movies without any kind of framing or description. While this might seem profoundly boring, viewer comments suggest meaninglessness can foster imaginative and empathetic responses to home movies, often expressed as nostalgic longing. This propensity of home movie footage within different screening contexts to encourage nostalgic sentiments, or a belief that life was better in the past, has implications for collective memory and understandings of history. Moreover, the ability of at least some viewers to enjoy home movies in relatively contextless spaces suggests that in certain instances qualities associated with boredom may not be a significant impediment to meaningful experience after all.</p>

scholarly journals Islam dan Budaya Masyarakat Gayo, Provinsi Aceh: Kajian Sejarah dan Sosial

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arfiansyah
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Past ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Colonial Time ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Impact

This article argues that Gayonese community practice Islam through the culture and less concern with religious texts. Although the wave of islamization since the colonial time and post-independence was high, the process does not succeed in introducing what the local scholars called as Islamic tradition. Such situation forces the following ulama to defend culture by finding justification for every practice instead of abolishing it. There are two factors leading to the situation. First, ulama of colonial and post-colonial time did not succeed in finding what they called as Islamic tradition replacing the existing tradition. second, lacking of regeneration of reformer Ulama that drive the living reformer ulama to support culture by inserting Islamic values and norms into the culture. This effort is crucial as the Gayonese refers more to the culture than the religious texts. This Article historically studies the development of Islam in Gayonese community. It frames its historical analysis from the Dutch colonial period to post independence of Indonesia Republic. It generally observes the impact of islamization in the past to the current situation. This article brings back the fundamental question in socio-anthropological studies about Islam that why do Muslim who refer to same source of text understand and practice Islam in widely various expression. The question is applied to this research exploring the development of Islam in Gayonese community inhabiting Central Aceh and Bener Meriah District. Thus, this research questions how did Islam develop in colonial time and its impact to the local culture? did there a debate about religion and culture take place during the colonial time and post-independence of Indonesia?  How does the past event affect the current practice of Islam in Gayonese community? the questions are explored historically by collecting relevant literatures and collective memory of the local people. The collective memory data were collected from 2015 to 2019

scholarly journals Sharing the archive: Using web technologies for accessing, storing and re-using historical data

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 205979911878774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Finnane ◽  
Andy Kaladelfos ◽  
Alana Piper
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Past History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Small Samples ◽  
Aggregated Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Web Technologies ◽  
The Past

Historical data pose a variety of problems to those who seek statistically based understandings of the past. Quantitative historical analysis has been limited by researcher’s reliance on rigid statistics collected by individuals or agencies, or else by researcher access to small samples of raw data. Even digital technologies by themselves have not been enough to overcome the challenges of working with manuscript sources and aligning dis-aggregated data. However, by coupling the facilities enabled by the web with the enthusiasm of the public for explorations of the past, history has started to make the same strides towards big data evident in other fields. While the use of citizens to crowdsource research data was first pioneered within the sciences, a number of projects have similarly begun to draw on the help of citizen historians. This article explores the particular example of the Prosecution Project, which since 2014 has been using crowdsourced volunteers on a research collaboration to build a large-scale relational database of criminal prosecutions throughout Australia from the early 1800s to 1960s. The article outlines the opportunities and challenges faced by projects seeking to use web technologies to access, store and re-use historical data in an environment that increasingly enables creative collaborations between researchers and other users of social and historical data.

Early Tudor Poetry: Courtliness and Print

2019 ◽  
pp. 257-284
Author(s):  
Derek Attridge
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The Impact

After noting the evidence for the public performance of poetry in Continental Europe, this chapter turns to the impact of print on English poetry: from the late fifteenth century, the printers Caxton and de Worde gave readers a new way to experience poems. At the court of Henry VIII, Skelton exploited both manuscript and print. The Devonshire manuscript, which circulated around Henry’s courtiers, is discussed, as is Tottel’s 1557 Songes and Sonettes, whose cachet lay partly in its making the private poetry of the elite available to a large public. Another popular collection was A Mirror for Magistrates, in which a gathering of poets impersonating famous tragic victims of the past was staged. Although there were signs of a suppler use of metre, the 1560s and 1570s were characterized by highly regular verse. The most skilled poet of this period, Gascoigne, was also responsible for a pathbreaking treatise on poetry.

scholarly journals Perception of Local Communities Towards the Conservation Terubok

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Nur Athirah Bakeri ◽  
Dayang Affizzah Awang Marikan ◽  
Amin Mahir Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
The Past ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Conservation Interventions

Terubok is one of the famous, important commercially fish in Malaysia and has high economic value which only can be found in Sarawak rivers. However, this species has been threatened in the past 15 years due to heavy exploitation. Hence, this study was done to examine the perceptions of local in conserving and sustaining the terubok population. An attitudinal study is increasingly being adopted as tools for evaluating public understanding, acceptance and the impact of conservation interventions. This study examines the perception and views of local community towards the dynamic resources, government intervention, unique features and livelihood sustainability which acts as a basis on conserving terubok. The findings of these studies show that almost all of the respondents show a highly positive attitude towards conserving terubok. Local community are really well aware with the importance of terubok. Hence, this study has proof that the local community has a positive attitude towards conserving terubok.

Political Parties and Public Participation in Constitution Making: Legitimation, Distraction, or Real Influence?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Hudson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Participatory Methods ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Party Strength ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Constitution Making

Over the past three decades, participatory methods of constitution making have gained increasing acceptance and are now an indispensable part of any constitution-making process. Despite this, we know little about how much public participation actually affects the constitution. This article investigates the impact of participation in two groundbreaking cases: Brazil (1988) and South Africa (1996). This analysis demonstrates that public participation has relatively small effects on the text, but that it varies in systematic ways. The theory advanced here posits that party strength (especially in terms of discipline and programmatic commitments) is the key determinant of the effectiveness of public participation. Strong parties may be more effective in many ways, but they are less likely to act on input from the public in constitution-making processes.

scholarly journals Mobilizing Data from Taxonomic Literature for an Iconic Species (Dinosauria, Theropoda, Tyrannosaurus rex)

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Miller ◽  
Yanell Braumuller ◽  
Puneet Kishor ◽  
David Shorthouse ◽  
Mariya Dimitrova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Museum Exhibits ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biodiversity Knowledge ◽  
Informatics Infrastructure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Occurrence Records

A vast amount of biodiversity data is reported in the primary taxonomic literature. In the past, we have demonstrated the use of semantic enhancement to extract data from taxonomic literature and make it available to a network of databases (Miller et al. 2015). For technical reasons, semantic enhancement of taxonomic literature is most efficient when customized according to the format of a particular journal. This journal-based approach captures and disseminates data on whatever taxa happen to be published therein. But if we want to extract all treatments on a particular taxon of interest, these are likely to be spread across multiple journals. Fortunately, the GoldenGATE Imagine document editor (Sautter 2019) is flexible enough to parse most taxonomic literature. Tyrannosaurus rex is an iconic dinosaur with broad public appeal, as well as the subject of more than a century of scholarship. The Naturalis Biodiversity Center recently acquired a specimen that has become a major attraction in the public exhibit space. For most species on earth, the primary taxonomic literature contains nearly everything that is known about it. Every described species on earth is the subject of one or more taxonomic treatments. A taxon-based approach to semantic enhancement can mobilize all this knowledge using the network of databases and resources that comprise the modern biodiversity informatics infrastructure. When a particular species is of special interest, a taxon-based approach to semantic enhancement can be a powerful tool for scholarship and communication. In light of this, we resolved to semantically enhance all taxonomic treatments on T. rex. Our objective was to make these treatments and associated data available for the broad range of stakeholders who might have an interest in this animal, including professional paleontologists, the curious public, and museum exhibits and public communications personnel. Among the routine parsing and data sharing activities in the Plazi workflow (Agosti and Egloff 2009), taxonomic treatments, as well as cited figures, are deposited in the Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR), and occurrence records are shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Treatment citations were enhanced with hyperlinks to the cited treatment on TreatmentBank, and specimen citations were linked to their entries on public facing collections databases. We used the OpenBiodiv biodiversity knowledge graph (Senderov et al. 2017) to discover other taxa mentioned together with T. rex, and to create a timeline of T. rex research to evaluate the impact of individual researchers and specimen repositories to T. rex research. We contributed treatment links to WikiData, and queried WikiData to discover identifiers to different platforms holding data about T. rex. We used bloodhound-tracker.net to disambiguate human agents, like collectors, identifiers, and authors. We evaluate the adequacy of the fields currently available to extract data from taxonomic treatments, and make recommendations for future standards.

scholarly journals Film Dokumenter Tradisi Megebeg-Gebegan “Sebuah Kebersamaan Yang Hilang”

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Kadek Agus Merta Yasa ◽  
Gede Saindra Santyadiputra ◽  
I Gede Mahendra Darmawiguna
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Community Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Strategy Model ◽  
Stage 4 ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
Stage 1 ◽  
Local Traditions

Tradisi Magebeg-Gebegan merupakan tradisi yang dilakukan oleh Masyarakat Desa Tukadmungga. Tradisi perebutan kepala anak sapi ini dilaksanakan secara turun temurun oleh masyarakat Desa Tukadmungga yang digelar pada saat upacara Bhuta Yadnya yaitu upacara pecaruan tawur kesanga. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk (1) Untuk mengimplementasikan hasil rancangan film dokumenter tradisi  Megebeg–Gebegan Desa Tukadmungga, (2) Untuk mengetahui respon kalangan masyarakat terhadap hasil film dokumenter  tradisi Megebeg–Gebegan Desa Tukadmungga. Metode Penelitian yang digunakan pada film dokumenter tradisi Megebeg-Gebegan adalah model Cyclic Strategy. Cyclic Strategy merupakan sebuah metode yang ada kalanya suatu tahap perlu diulang kembali sebelum tahap berikutnya dilanjutkan. Adapun tahap–tahap dari Cyclic Strategy diantaranya adalah brief, tahap 1, tahap 2, evaluasi 1, tahap 3, evaluasi 2, tahap 4 dan Outcome. Dengan dibuatkanya film dokumenter tradisi Megebeg–Gebegan ini, masyarakat akan menyadari pentingnya eksistensi tradisi lokal yang dimiliki sebagai warisan peradaban di masa lampau untuk dilestarikan sebagai penjunjung nilai sejarah, norma, dan keunikan tradisi di daerah tempat tinggal. Selain itu film dokumenter tradisi Megebeg-Gebegan ini dapat dijadikan sebagai media informasi serta menjadi inspirasi bagi masyarakat Desa Tukadmungga pada khususnya. Kata kunci : Film Dokumenter, Tradisi Megebeg–Gebegan, Tradisi Lokal. The Magebeg-Gebegan tradition is a tradition carried out by the Tukadmungga Village Community. This calf head grab tradition is carried out from generation to generation by the people in Tukadmungga Village which was held at the Bhuta Yadnya ceremony a day before Nyepi day, namely the tawur kesanga renewal ceremony. This study aims to (1) To implement the results of the documentary design of Megebeg-Gebegan tradition in Tukadmungga Village, (2) To find out the community response to the results of documentary film Megebeg-Gebegan tradition in Tukadmungga Village. The research method used in the documentary Megebeg-Gebegan tradition is the Cyclic Strategy model. Cyclic Strategy is a method that sometimes has to be repeated before the next stage continues. The stages of Cyclic Strategy include briefs, stage 1, stage 2, evaluation 1, stage 3, evaluation 2, stage 4 and Outcome. With this documentary on the Megebeg-Gebegan tradition, the public will realize the how importance is the existence of local traditions that have been held as a legacy of civilization in the past to be preserved as upholding historical values, norms, and unique traditions in the area of residence. In addition, the documentary of Megebeg-Gebegan tradition can be used as a medium of information as well as an inspiration for the people of Tukadmungga Village in particular. Keywords: Documentary Film, Megebeg-Gebegan Tradition, Local Tradition.

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