Week 9

I have yet to narrow down exactly what I’d like to write about for my final essay. As I’m attempting to work through some ideas, I thought it best to start from an article from the course readings that I found particularly interesting. Bonnie Mak’s “Archaeology of a Digitization” is such an article for me. While using the concept of archaeology first popularized by Foucault, Mak “excavates for consideration the discursive practices by which digitizations are produced, circulated, and received” (1515). This article offered me a way into thinking about media archaeology, a theoretical frame discussed in this course, all the while not necessarily being strictly within the tradition of media archaeology. What interests me specifically is what is forgotten and what is changed from copying a work from one format to another. Mak’s object of study, EEBO, is based on the Short-Title catalogue (STC), which was never a full bibliography of all books known. EEBO does have differences from STC but “the editors of the database remain elusive about the production of EEBO, including the precise nature of its relationship with the STC” (1517).  

There is an element of not only reproduction, but also repetition at play here. Digital facsimiles are available but there is also on initiative to transcribe the texts, which Mak warns should be taken as reliable. What becomes authoritative? What are the social process and politics involved in reproduction and repetition? Mak argues that archaeology helps rediscover what has been hidden, but also to ensure that things aren’t hidden moving forward (1520). Media archaeology offers an interesting avenue to explore formats and what that means as a social and historical process. I plan to further read about media archaeology and see if I can develop an essay topic to consider what media archaeology can stay about reproduction, repetition, status of the original, and format.

Reference

Mak, Bonnie. "Archaeology of a Digitization." Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology 65, no. 8 (2014): 1515-26.