What's this? A Post Without Pictures?

What Public History and Digital Media has meant to me...
by Jeff Stewart

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to summarize my thoughts regarding my first and only experience in a public history class. First of all, I had never really heard of public history prior to entering the history program at U.C.F., and had never given a moment’s thought to museums and how they were created. I have visited museums all of my life and have gone to educational web-sites ever since there have been educational web-sites and again, had never for a moment thought about what went into the development of those physical and virtual exhibits. Public History and Digital Media changed all of that for me.


While my career thus far has put me to work primarily in the hospitality industry, both in the hotel/lodging, and in the food and beverage aspects of that industry, I have never really enjoyed what I did for a living. What I did enjoy, was when I was able to design a new business, a new product line, a new service, etc.


When I decided to go back to graduate school and become a historian, I saw myself as giving up on all that I had done in my previous career and donning a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I would stride among the ivy covered buildings with a pipe in my mouth and little round glasses down on the tip of my nose; occasionally dispensing wisdom to wide-eyed undergrads who would eagerly eat up every word that came from my mouth. Then of course, I would periodically have to take off my tweed jacket, replace it with a leather one, grab my bull-whip and hat, and have to run off to some exotic location to take part in some dusty, spider-web covered, history oriented adventure. And of course, in the end I get the girl. This is the life of a historian, right?


So where am I going with all of this? Well, Public History and Digital Media has changed all of this for me. I now see the nebulous, fog shrouded outline of a new career for myself. I don’t know specifically what shape it will ultimately take, but I now see that I can meld the aspects of my former career that I enjoyed and was good at, with the study of history. I can find a way to teach history without walking around in a tweed jacket with little round glasses on the tip of my nose. I have nearly perfect eye-sight, so that never really made much sense anyway. And besides, I hate pipe smoking and am afraid of mouth cancer, so this new direction really should work out better for me in the long run.


While Public History and Digital Media has primarily dealt with, obviously, digital media, it seems to me that telling a historical narrative can take a thousand forms. I think that Dr. Walter’s digital re-creation of the 1964 World’s Fair is going to be fascinating. I also think that traditional museum displays can be brought up to date with new technologies and as such can be made far more interesting and informative. The ideas that we have discussed in this class can also be adapted to educational vehicles such as documentary films as well. The concept of the “virtuous circle” is one that I believe will be useful in whatever aspect(s) of narrative presentation that I will ultimately pursue as a career.


The “virtuous circle” it seems to me, has its roots firmly in the repetition of information notion that advertising/marketing professionals have practiced ever since there have been advertising/marketing professionals. It also uses aspects of communication research such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model or ELM that academics in that field have been investigating for the past twenty or so years. People remember information that they have seen over and over again. They are then persuaded by that information when they internally elaborate on that information and make it their own. The virtuous circle concept accomplishes both of these tasks. One stroll through a museum will result in very little information being retained, much less internalized. When the same information is seen, for example, on a web-site after the museum visit, then that information begins to find purchase in the mind of the museum visitor. They can then internally elaborate on that information, making it into their own, and enjoy their subsequent visits to the museum even more.


So in summary, what has this class meant to me? Well for one, I am not looking at the career of a historian in nearly the same way. I still have a hankering to write books, but I now want to do more. I want to design and build things; web-sites, museum exhibits, non-museum exhibits, and perhaps even make documentary films. I don’t really know specifically how I am going to do this yet, but every journey starts with that first step. Public History and Digital Media has given me that first step. We’ll just have to wait and see where that journey will eventually go.