booktorrent

From booktorrent

"If we're not fairly aggressive and organized about our role in the emerging, national information infrastructure, humanities scholarship will be a footnote... Humanists must engage the technology: if we don't do that, we can't complain when it turns to be hostile to our needs and ambitions"
- digital humanist John Unsworth

"computation... has the potential to transform... how humans communicate, work, and play, and thus- to some extent- what it means to be human"- Computer Scientist Ian Foster as quoted in Thomas Bartscherer's Switching Codes

The field of the Humanities has a special connection to the study of digital media for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the studies of humanities scholars include key subjects strongly influenced by digital media (visual, aural, and literary studies in particular). Because the Humanist studies the effects that the advancement of digital media brings upon society as a whole, they have an occupational interest in the role of digital media in the modern world. Furthermore, particular technologies are of key interest to humanities scholars- the database for instance is a great tool for scholars who often have to sort through sources of collected evidence and data, from primary archived documents to citations of other scholars to textual analysis. Finally, as digital humanist Tara McPherson argues, humanities scholars should appreciate digital media as it creates the opportunity for "fresh avenues of inquiry and research" in the humanities world.