Reflection 7- Erik Carneal

My project is heavily based around political science, which is my major. My project has been able to present typical political science project information in a way that incorporates many digital humanities aspects. Being able to create any sort of humanities based project online is one of the beauties of the digital humanities. In a non digital humanities setting, this project would have been probably presented in a much more physical and simple way. Especially with political science, papers and posters are very standard for the classroom type projects. While this is an efficient and useful way to get a point across, it limits the creative aspect that helps the viewer better understand said point. With my project, and many other digital humanities projects like it, that creative aspect is able to thrive in many forms. For example, my project uses timelines and interactive corpuses that are creative tools for learning. 

A key component to knowing how effective a creative tool is the use of a test partner. Collebarting about and testing different parts of your project is very useful in determining what creative aspects of the site are most pleasing to a viewer. Nothing helps your website grow like good criticism does. This collaborative aspect of the digital humanities is what allows the field to be so connected and to have mutual respect for others and their studies. Examples from this summer of this include our trip to Lafayette College and when students from the Bucknell University DSSF program came down to spend a day with us. In both of these settings, it was clear that everyone involved was open to and excited about the collaboration and the sharing of opinions. Everyone approached the collaboration with a pre-established respect for others in the digital humanities. From both of these examples, I have taken others ideas and applied them to my project based on their feedback. This allowed for my website to grow and to become more appealing to a viewer that does not know how to navigate the site. I also felt as though my insingth and opinions were valued by the other students, and they seemed very appreciative of that fact. I hope that these types of meetings and gatherings remain a common occurrence for the digital humanities as the field continues to grow.

 

Reflection 6- Erik Carneal

My project, with much of the digital humanities as a whole, uses digital tools to present my argument in a nice flow. This is focusing on the practical side of my website that makes sure each page and function serves an important role on the website. My project specifically used the digital tools TimelineJs and Voyant Tools. I choose both of these tools because they offered me a way to complete my argument and make my site as a whole seem more sound. Firstly, Timeline Js provided a visual way to show the progression of the articles and how close to Election Day they were published. This helps the reader better understand the nature of these articles and puts a timeline into the readers head that shows how close to election day they got. My other digital tool, Voyant Tools, is a program that allowed me to run a number of text analysis tests that provided me with useful and interactive visuals. These visuals present useful date, but also do so in a way that keeps the viewer interested because of the interactivity and general pleasing aesthetic. Overall, Voyant Tools contributed to the soundness of my site by having that useful interactive element which better presents the argument on a digital platform. In the article Sound Engineering: Toward a theory of multi model soundness by Jody Shkipa, she says in regard to what makes a project sound, “The specific conditions in, under, or with which the final product will be experienced by its audience—this involves determining or otherwise structuring the delivery, reception and/or circulation of their work”. It’s important to have this mindset when in completing the project. The way the audience is able to receive the information and easily navigate the site are very important when it comes to determining the soundness. I believe both my TimelineJs and Voyant Tools visuals betters the viewer’s ability to flow through not only my website by to flow through my argument.

I had originally had the ideas of also implementing a visual interactive map, but once I had the demo embedded it became clear the it disrupted the flow of my project. This trial and error is important to keeping the site’s soundness. If I had kept the map, it would have been visually pleasing but it would have confused the viewer and steered them away from the actual argument. An important tactic that I have noticed seems to work is to read through and navigate through your site as if you’d never seen it before. Coming in with a blank slate allows you to see where the site’s argument becomes weak and what elements of the site disrupt the soundness. It is also very useful to do this with a friend or a colleague that has never carefully navigated the site before. Soundness is an important factor for all websites, not just those in the Digital Humanities, and will always be an important part of the website making process.

 

Reflection 5- Erik Carneal

As my project has been coming along, the concepts of the digital humanities has become more clear and understandable to me. To me, the digital humanities are the presentation of information and data in a way that is visual and accessible to all. When relating this definition to my project, I can say that through the use of the digital tools that I use I have been able to present my research in a visual way. With these digital tools, I have allowed for my project to transform the presentation articles and how they are broken down. The possibilities for the digital humanities to be transformative are endless. The openness and diverse ways of presentation are what allow for new and innovative visuals to be created and used for the presentation of information. What makes these specific projects digital humanities or not is still up for debate, but my thoughts on the question has remained the same. Digital humanities and scholarship is any project that has useful and factual information that is presented in some sort of digital way. By this definition, the idea that the digital humanities is transformative only becomes greater. 

I have even taught myself new information through this project. This is information related to the understanding of both the digital humanities and my project itself. By learning digital tools like TimelineJs and StorymapJs, the information I have gathered becomes much easier to understand and breakdown. I believe that in my project and many others, the most transformatie aspect is the transformation of written information to visual information. An example within my project are text analysis visuals. These visuals are all articles broken down and analyzed in a visual way that is pleasing the viewer’s eye and easier to learn and understand. My visuals make a complicated form of the digital humanities, like text analysis, into an interactive and fun way to learn about the details of writing. Another example within my article is my interactive timeline. This timeline takes articles and presents them in chronological order in a way that is interactive with the user. The user can scroll and see the headlines and thumbnails of the articles as they use the timeline. These two examples are how my project can be transformative. My project may inspire other scholars to use visual elements to make the presentation of information easier and more of an interactive thing. 

The DSSF program as a whole is transformative itself. The program allows for this information that students gather to be presented in transformative ways. Programs like this are just now becoming popular, and the general theme of it has spread to other schools in different areas across the U.S. Programs like these are changing what we perceive as learning, which was usually either through visuals or text. With the digital humanities, we can learn through both put together in one project. As the digital humanities continues to grow, I believe that it wIll only become more and more transformative and more inspirational for scholars alike.

 

Reflection #4- Erik Carneal

The digital humanities is a very new form of scholarly practice. Neoliberalism ideas and values often appear on the digital humanities due to it being so new. One of the main ideas in neoliberalism is the idea of a free market. In the digital humanities, the market is open to anyone. All are allowed to and have the equal opportunity to create a digital humanities project and present it for public knowledge. This is made possible because of the digital humanities remaining free to create and access. If money was involved in the digital humanities, then the market would become less of an open market. Neoliberalism is strongly against capitalism and so are the digital humanities. Capitalism revolves around monopolies and big money complains that seize control of the industry. The fact that there is money directly from these digital humanities projects means that no company or individual can try to take control of said project. 

Another idea that is a result of the open market is the idea of scholarly collaboration. As Matthew Kirschenbaum touches in the article Am I a Digital Humanist? Confessions of a Neoliberal Tool, scholars within the field have the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas without harm. The open market not only means open in terms of money, but open in terms of the free sharing of information. One a digital humanities project is published, it enters a mixing bowl of ideas the the digital humanities presents for all. With proper citation, this information can start flowing through the open market still with no cost to the consumer. This creates an explosion of digital humanities projects that evolve around the use of cited work. For example, my project here at Gettysburg is mostly others information just presented in a visual way. I would not have the opportunity to create this project if it wasn’t for the free and open access to the information I need to visualize. In the article In Defense of DH, Grace Alfasi-Mamagani mentions that the digital humanities is very much a form of project-based learning. She again implements the idea that the digital humanities is all about open collerbation. She mentions that the digital humanities have similar values as public humanities, which also reflects neoliberalism values. The public humanities is the work of presented history, culture, and tradition to the public sphere in a way that is relevant to the modern world. 

As the weeks continue here at Gettysburg, I have learned more and more about the values of the digital humanities. Being a Political Science major, neoliberalism has been a topic of study for the past couple years. The digital humanities certainly incompase the neoliberal values. The values allow for the scholarly field to grow and expand because everyone has the equal chance to produce. The neoliberal values are what allow me and my colleagues to have this opportunity this summer to create a digital humanities project and contribute to the melting pot of information that comes as a result. 

 

Reflection 3- Erik Carneal

This week was a very productive week for my project, and much was learned outside of my own work as well. We have delved further into understanding and dissecting the digital humanities as the weeks go on in the fellowship. We have learned that a key aspect of the digital humanities is that anyone can create a project for public use. This allows for anyone to contribute to teaching and providing knowledge. Having the academic liberty to create this knowledge limits larger companies or larger information sources to control what they see as valuable knowledge. With this freedom, there can be much more diversity within the digital humanities sphere. Digital humanities can involve a wide range of genres and topic of learning. This is allowed because of the right that anyone can produce any knowledge they wish to bring to a public sphere. The digital humanities does not require a larger company to check the worthiness of the knowledge, which limits the individual from producing a free thinking project. This academic freedom has mostly positive benefits, yet it could also lead to people spreading false information. There is no check process, which means that hate or other prejudice information could be produced. This does seem like a rarity considering scholars within the digital humanities almost always produce information for good, yet the possibility of prejudice information still lingers.

When students produce digital humanities projects, they are working for a higher learning institution yet their ideas and information they produce are their own. When these higher institutions provide information for the students, it is often by a curriculum. Digital humanities programs allow for the students to create their own idea with the foundational learning they have been taught by higher education. This also causes the higher education knowledge they produce to be more diverse. Students often have different viewpoints and idea which creates a melting pot of information within the digital humanities. This diversity of free information expands further when the higher education institutions allow for their students to collaborate with other schools and their digital humanities. For example, our upcoming trip to Lafayette College is a chance to share the research and knowledge we have gained with other digital humanities peers.

I look forward to producing a final product that can contribute to the knowledge that the digital humanities provide. By having our projects be open access, we have allowed others to tap into free information provided by scholars. By making information like this free, education can be provided through outlets other than large academic institution. Since these projects remain free, no large company or conglomerate would form to make money off the product. When money is left out of it, the information remains much more independent and true to the author. Nonprofits such as CreativeCommons allow for the legal use of the information, which creates a flow of free information. As the digital humanities continue to grow, I hope that the information remains free and true to the author.

 

Reflection #2- Erik Carneal

One of the tools that we learned during this week of the DSSF program was TimelineJs. TimelineJs is important to me because I plan to use it to present my research in my project. TimelineJs allows you to input data regarding an image and a text related to that image into an interactive timeline. The timelines are very easy to learn how to make because it allows the user to import said information into a Google Form, which is then converted into the timeline. Google Drive programs, like Google Form, are very simple and allow for a wide range of accessibility considering the basic aspects of the tool. This digital tool can help a scholar or researcher visualize the time of their data and it makes it easy to find certain facts and events based on their time in history. This tool is great for visual learners who like to see the information presented as interactive or within something that is interactive. This tool if free to use, which adds to the open accessibility aspect of the digital tool. All it takes to use this tool is a simple download which helps with its popularity. This tool is not necessarily for scholars who look to make an extremely complicated timeline. TimelineJs seems more for scholars who are either just learning about digital tools or who are trying to make a simple site for a project or presentation.

This tool seems to have little bias considering how simple and open it is. TimelineJs allows for any user to input any data they wish, which automatically makes it a non-bias tool. The creators have made no harsh assumptions. The only assumptions the creators made was that people using it are not as advanced, therefore it is made to be easy. This tool is seems easy to master, which is great for college scholars who have little experience with digital timelines. I plan to use TimelineJs to timeline bias reports leading up to the 2016 election. I believe that the simple visual aspect of the tool will be good for my project and allow for whoever is accessing it to have no trouble navigating the site. TimelineJs allows for both images and videos to be imputed, which means that my data can be presented in a variety of ways within the timeline. Video news broadcasts as well as news transcripts can both be seen on the timeline leading up to the election. TimelineJs seems to be one of the most simple tools that we have learned yet. Even though it is simple, the end product that it creates seems very professional and clean. I see myself using TimelineJs for projects outside of this one, and other digital humanities projects can certainly benefit from this program as well. Unrelated, this tool is not only easy but it is fun to use. The end product of a professional looking timeline that you have complete control of it what makes this tool fun to use. Overall, this tool seems very helpful for my project and for scholarly projects I wish to tackle beyond this.

 

Project Charter – Erik Carneal

Project Name

  • “Political Media Bias articles and broadcasts before the 2016 Elections in Adams County.”

Project Owner

  • By: Erik Channing Carneal

Project Summary

  • This project will analyze news articles and news broadcasts related to the 2016 presidential elections, particlualry by Adams County news sources. With these articles, I will create a timeline of them leading up the 2016 election in Adams County. I will use text anylasis by use of Voyant to show what words were used most in the report. At the end of the timeline will be the 2016 Adams County election results, and an analysis on how these bias reports contributed to the these polls. This type bias reporting is a threat to democracy and threatens the idea of free political thinking. My audience is for any scholar looking to research political media and how political media can be good for or a threat to democracy. This is also for anyone looking to learn more about political journalism in general.

Deliverables

  1. I will need to use WordPress to layout the design of my website.
  2. I will need to use a text analysis software that I like, such as Amenity.
  3. I will need to find number of articles that exemplify bias media.
  4. I will use TimelineJs to timeline the articles
  5. I will use Voyant Tools to analyis the articles
  6. I will use STATA datasets to research election results.

Timeline

Week 2: Project Charter Due

  • Complete Project Charter.
  • Gather local news sources.
  • Complete an annotated bibliography by Friday.

Week 3: Wireframes due on Friday, June 21st.

  • Start and finish wireframes.
  • Find best video and text sources. Get rid of ones unused.
  • Start to develop a digital timeline.

Week 4: Text Analysis and Video Analysis due by Friday, June 28th.

  • Complete text analysis.
  • Complete video analysis.

Week 5: Category Visualization due by Friday, July 5th.

  • Finish wordpress layout and incorporate timeline into wordpress.
  • Finish “about” section.

Week 6: Project Draft due by Friday, July 12th

  • Finish project draft.
  • Clean up any final touches on wordpress.

Week 7: Final Project Link due by Friday, July 19th

  • Complete project.
  • Prepare for presentation.

Week 8:

  • Present project.

End of Life/Future Plans

    • The plan for the project after the fellowship. Will the project continue on in some form? Who will continue to work on it? How will it be preserved
    • After my project is complete, I plan to use this as a starting point in further research I would like to complete. I plan to use this project as a reference in future projects, even beyond graduation. I hope that this project can be preserved in the Library website.

Reflection #1

Reflection #1

 

This first week being a DSSF has been heavily focused on the core values and aspects of the Digital Humanties. The Digital Humanities is a broad term for a genre of scholarly projects that use digital tools as a way of presenting and distributing their research. For my project, I plan to see the digital humanities exemplified through many aspects of my research. By use of interact maps, I can show my findings per area throughout the United States. This mix of scholarly research and information and digital tools is how Digital Humanities is used in my project. Unlike the sciences, digital humanities projects seem to have a more of a wide variety of formats in which the information is presented. For example, my project plans to have text analysis, video analysis, and video presentation to present my research. If this was a science or other STEM related project, then the information is most likely only offered through one platform because the information is often more literal. Digital Humanities is especially interesting to me because it encompasses the same principles of classic research yet it involves modern technologies. In the article by Amanda Visconti, she explains how the digital humanities often take the work and the research of others to a collected source that can be reached on many different platforms such as tablets and laptops. My project definitely does that by taking news articles and collecting them together. The Digital Humanities seem to be a great way to preserve the works of others because once they are uploaded to the web, a second copy of that work becomes preserved. My project will take these news articles and my analysis of them and allow them to be preserved. The digital humanities seems to be like an online library or reserve that holds scholarly sources in a digital database. With my project, I hope that the information I provide about political bias in the news will be in a place that can be easily accessed by all. From what I have read and seen, a core principle of the Digital Humanities is fair access for all. To gain this, my Digital Humanities project will hopefully be compatible with a number of different devices. Similar to a book in a library, this makes my project easily accessible and free. This easy gain of the information is a major part of making a true Digital Humanities project. In the upcoming weeks, I look forward to developing a better understanding of the Digital Humanities and adapting what I learn to my own project. Digital Humanities is still a rather foreign concept to me, and I hope to become more of an expert on the topic. I also look forward to developing a schedule around my project and creating wireframes as well as beginning the actual research. This past week has been a great intoduction to the Digital Humanties, and it has gotten me even more excited about the upcoming work that I have planned.

 

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