Fighting master narratives with digital projects
Ever heard of Digital Public History? It’s a dull-sounding phrase, but it designates an exciting discipline. A good way to understand what this domain is all about, is to break its name down into two parts. Public History is the endeavor to share history with the general public. Digital Public History (DPH), is the branch of Public History that focuses on sharing information digitally. DPH projects include social media accounts such as @RealTimeWW1 which are dedicated to specific historical events, audiovisual models such as The Sound of 18th-Century Paris, or augmented reality projects such as Hack the Heist.
Historical material is not benign
Discovering the field of DPH, through a class at the University of Luxembourg, has given me a new angle from which to approach digital design. In essence, it has further opened my eyes to the need for diversity and the right amount of complexity in the works we produce. Let me give you a bit more context.
History is a sensitive topic. The way in which one presents historical knowledge can easily be influenced by one’s worldview and agenda. In turn, viewing historical information can have an impact on the audience’s mindset. Ronald Takaki, the late and great American historian, explains that buying into a specific historical narrative can build barriers in people’s minds. For example, teaching students that the U.S. is a nation of white Anglo-Saxon immigrants sometimes makes them assume that people of color “are not, and cannot” be American.
Not only does the master narrative of the white pilgrims populating America create prejudice, it’s also biased. The ancestors of many white Americans arrived on the continent later than those of many Asian, Latin and African Americans. The fact that we often forget this demonstrates that biased History feeds biased beliefs. The U.S. is a diverse country, but its ‘official’ history often isn’t.
Repetition is powerful
The strength of official History, the one taught in schools and written on monuments, is its ubiquity. Seeing the same master narrative over and over again engrains it in our minds. It becomes a part of how we understand the world. That’s why History, whether it is presented online or in museums, should present more holistic narratives. We should learn and teach the History of all the social groups that make up our communities and nations. This will help us better understand our countries, our roots, and our roles.
We can all play a part in sharing this comprehensive story. That’s the beauty of digital. Whether or not we’re involved in Digital Public History, we all use the internet. Many of us share information on social media, some of us blog or vlog, others create websites and applications. If we all tried to share and create more diverse content, we would minimize the power of the biased master narrative we are taught in schools. The beauty of digital is that we can use repetition for good. We can show how relevant counter narratives are, and perhaps even influence the way official History is told. Many people are already building projects that challenge the status quo. Take a look at The Missing Chapter: Black Chronicles, Making Gay History, and Overlooked.
Such projects display the essential need to avoid simplification. The world does not always reflect our mental models. If we dig a little deeper, we’ll find people and events that don’t fit our pre-conceived ideas. This lesson is striking when looking at History, but it can also be applied to digital design.
Simplicity and digital design
In digital design, simplicity often feels like a good solution. It allows people to easily understand how to use a product. It also shortens texts so people can quickly scan through pages. But, when repeated enough times, simplicity can lead to a biased perception of the world. The trick is to simplify without oversimplifying; keeping just enough detail to represent the diversity and complexity of the world. To illustrate my point, let’s take a look at “Surviving Charles Dickens’ London,” a BBC game created in the early 2000s (the exact date is unclear).
I came across “Surviving Charles Dickens’ London” while looking for online narratives on the Victorian era, a historical period that fascinates me. The game tells the story of a young boy named Kit who is trying to gather 12 shillings to take the coach to Rochester, where he’ll meet Dickens. Kit spends most of his time in slums, meeting characters who are worse off than he is. Judging from the graphics and the tone of voice, this game was created for preteens.
The first few screens of the game onboard the player by explaining the controls: use the arrows to move, click on the objects and people you want to interact with. The game’s ease of use makes it accessible and engaging, especially for the target audience. The player can start playing relatively fast without having to struggle with complicated rules. That’s all wonderful!
However, the simplicity of the game also permeates the narrative. As the characters Kit meets are all white males, the game makes Victorian London seem almost devoid of diversity. The only mention of women appears when the narrator tells the player about Little Nell, a character out of Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. Little Nell plays no role in the story; she’s simply cited. Granted, the Victorian era was dominated by white men. The 19th century witnessed high levels of misogyny, racism, homophobia, elitism, and other types of discrimination. However, it is not because certain social groups were deemed inferior during a historical period that they were unimportant to the cultural and industrial development of the age.
It shouldn’t have been too difficult to diversify the cast of characters. In keeping with the theme of the game, Kit could have met individuals who, despite being perceived as inferior at the time, fought for the rights of the working class. What about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Annie Besant, and William Cuffay? Since the game is about Dickens, why not include his wife, Catherine, or his later love Ellen Ternan? Information about individuals other than white males would have doubtless given players a more holistic view of Dickens’ London.
Studying Digital Public History, and coming across “Surviving Charles Dickens’ London” has reminded me of the need to be conscious of the power we wield when building the content available on internet. Discrimination still exists, in part because we repeat the master narrative that has engendered it. It’s up to us to create projects that reflect the diverse world in which we live. Let’s stop using images and texts that further feed the master narrative. Digital History projects like The Missing Chapter: Black Chronicles, Making Gay History, Overlooked are great examples. Alex, a tool that allows you to check your texts for potentially insensitive language, is another valuable initiative.
