History Remediated: Historical Knowledge in the Age of Participatory Culture (Re-edition with Editorial Introduction, 2025)

At the Source of Dailiness Interpreting the Traces of History of Everyday Life edited by Violetta Julkowska Poznań 2020 © Copyright by Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) Wydział Historii UAM (AMU Faculty of History), Poznań 2020 RevieweRs Magdalena NOWAK PhD Hab. Mariusz MENZ PhD CHiEF EDitOr Professor Violetta JULKOWSKA in cooperation with Małgorzata GUMPEr PhD COVEr designed and iLLUStrAtiONS prepared by Piotr NAMiOtA the photo on the cover from the private collection of Wielebscy family from Wieleń at Noteć, depicts Katarzyna Wielebska (née Gapińska) DtP Hanna KOSSAK-NOWOCiEŃ iSBN 978-83-66355-52-1 WYDZiAŁ HiStOrii UAM ul. Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 7, 61-614 Poznań tel. 61 829 14 64, e-mail: hist[email protected] www.historia.amu.edu.pl PriNt Zakład Graficzny UAM ul. Wieniawskiego 1 61-712 Poznań Contents ViOLEttA JULKOWSKA A Few Words of introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Part I Reflection on the Sources of Dailiness and Research of Them 11 MACiEJ BUGAJEWSKi Dailiness, remnants, Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 JAKUB ŻOŁNiErEK “Historical Depth” as a Source of Dailiness: reflections on the Margin of the theory of Historical Memory of Avishai Margalit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 MAriA SOLArSKA Some reflections about Dailiness as a Subject of Historical Study . . . . . . . . . . . 33 JULiA WESOŁOWSKA indicators of Usefulness of Correspondence as a Source in Historical Study: the Case of the Collection of Letters of Students and Alumnae of the School of Women’s Housework to Jadwiga Zamoyska (1898-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 ViOLEttA JULKOWSKA Family Histories – Narratives and Narrators of Dailiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 MAŁGOrZAtA GUMPER Family Note – Music in Everyday Life of the Daughters of Michał Kleofas Ogiński . 61 SABiNA JAKUtOVič the Contemporary reception of Michał Kleofas Ogiński in Lithuania. . . . . . . . . 77 PiOtr KrAJEWSKi War Dailiness of the Musicians in the territory of the General Government (1939- -1945). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 WErONiKA tErLECKA Advertising of the Luba Brand in the Selected Press of the interwar Period. . . . . 105 KAtArZYNA KrUSZYŃSKA Everyday Life in the Wartheland – Memories of a Witness of the Past . . . . . . . . 117 KArOLiNA BANASiAK Displaced Persons from the East: the Case of Muszkowo village in Lubuskie voivodeship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 KAtArZYNA tECŁAw Historical Photonarrations as an innovative Narrative Strategy of Family Histories: the Case of the Wielebski Family from Wieleń on the Noteć river . . . . . . . . . . 141 Part II New Cognitive Perspectives in Research on Dailiness 151 JACEK MAŁCZYŃSKi, EWA DOMAŃSKA, MiKOŁAJ SMYKOWSKi, AGNiESZKA KŁOs the Environmental History of the Holocaust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 DOrOtA SKOtArCZAK the image of the Polish People’s republic in the tV Series of the 1960s. . . . . . . 163 6CONtENtS ANNA tOPOLSKA War and Dailiness: Between Everyday Life and the Second World War in Poznan in Visual Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 WiKtOr WErNEr, ADriAN trZOSs History remediated: Historical Knowledge in the Age of Participatory Culture . . 195 Part III The Concept of History of Everyday Life in Historical Education (Czech Studies) 211 BLAžENA GrACOVá, ANDrEA POKLUDOVá the Concept of Everyday Life and History teaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 JULiE JANKOVá Different Approaches to task Analysis in History textbooks with regard to the Concept of Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Jiří KArEN How to Study History textbooks in the 21st Century? research into the Educational Properties of textbooks in terms of School Historical Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 tAMArA tOMANOVá Analysis and Didactic Use of Holocaust Depictions in Czech Films in relation to Polish History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 irENA KAPUStOVá Working with the History textbook as a Historical Source and Forming History Awareness in School Children Using the Example of Jan Hus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 MONiKA KUDELOVá Exploring the History of industry and Everyday Life Using Suitcase Exhibits. . . . 311 Biographical Notes 325 Wiktor Werner Adrian Trzoss History Remediated: Historical Knowledge in the Age of Participatory Culture 1. Research problem and discussion The aim of the following article is to present the impact of the digital media on everyday life of the society which can be named “the network society”1 and the “society of participatory culture”2. This will be considered in the perspective of the historical knowledge role in the prosumption of the information with the usage of the social media portal youTube, internet encyclopedia Wikipedia and Google search engine. This problem is part of a larger ongoing reflection upon how the specificity of the media affects the nature of the content reception and operation as well as participation. The discussion of this issue can be found as far back as in the reflections of enlightenment thinkers who contemplated the specific kinds of artistic creation; in particular, one should mention Gotthold e. lessing’s Laokoon: Oder, Über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie3, wherein the limits between the poet’s message and that of a painter or a sculptor were pointed out. In lessing, the specificity of a field of art determines the fields of possibility and impossibility in the message, which makes these two areas of creation complement each other but not overlap. The Romantic period abounded with reflections on how the means of communication influenced the form of the message. It should be noted that this age brought forth the awareness of creative generation of ideas and values, which led to stressing the demiurgic role of an artist and a thinker, while the artists themselves engaged in the reflection on the form and social significance of creation. 1 M. Castells, Rise of the network society, Hoboken 2004. 2 H. Jenkins et al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Media Education for the 21st Century, Chicago 2006. 3 G.e. lessing, Laokoon, Oder, Über Die Grenzen der Malerei Und Poesie Mit Beiläufigen Erläuterungen Verschiedener Punkte der Alten Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1766. 196 WIKTOR WeRNeR, ADRIAN TRzOSS In the 20th century modern ‘media studies’ arose, in whose rise a major role was played by the tradition of ‘critical studies’ of literature, all artistic as well as scientific creation, and their relationships with the widespread awareness and forms of culture. examples include, obviously, Walter Ong’s works about the literary and oral cultural sensitivity4, Giovanni Sartori’s work on visuality5, and above all Marshall Macluhan’s studies about the significance of media forms6. even though Macluhan’s scope of interest mainly encompassed ‘analog’ media, in which he included not only printed books and press, radio, television and cinema, but also all communication technologies (telegraph, telephone) and even communication infrastructure (roads, railroads), his definition of a medium not as a passive, transparent relay but rather a living ‘interpreter’ inspired Alan Kay, one of the pioneers of computerization, to shift the perception of a computer from a computation machine to an universal, ‘ultimate’ medium. Alan Kay, an outstanding scientist and engineer who worked for many computer companies (Xerox in 1970), was looking in the late 1960s and early 1970s for ways to make the computer available for non-scientific use and allow it to play the role in culture similar to the invention of print. For this purpose, the computer had to turn from a computation machine into a universal simulator of both existing media (books, radio, TV, easel, sketchbook) and ones not yet invented. Macluhan’s works were a source of inspiration for Kay7. His search resulted in the invention of the graphical user interface (GUI), computer mouse, and notebook (then called “dynabook”), a very powerful device in 1970, complete with a GUI and multimedia software. Following the principle that ‘the best way to pre dict the future is to invent it’, Alan Kay contributed to transforming the computer from a highly specialized tool into a medium that, using Macluhan’s terminology, became an ‘extension of man’8, or an entity which permanently accompanies people. Such a development of digital technology was also predicted by another prominent scholar, J.C.R. licklider, whose 1960 paper described the evolution of a human-computer system towards a ‘symbiosis’9, a much stronger cooperative relationship than was the case of various tools used by humans from the very beginning. The uniqueness of this system is related to the uniqueness of the computer as a universal information manipulation tool and its invention due to the need for a device supporting humans in their most intimate aspect, i.e., thinking. The unique significance of digitization, as noted by Jay David Bolter and Richard 4 W. Ong, Interfaces of the Word. Studies In The Evolution Of Consciousness And Culture, New york 1977; idem, Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word, Abingdon 2012. 5 G. Sartori, Homo videns: telewizja i postmyślenie, Polish translation: J. Uszyński, Warsaw 2005. 6 M. Macluhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The Making of Typographic Man, Toronto 1962; M. Macluhan, e. Macluhan, Laws of Media. The New Science, Toronto 1988. 7 l. Manovich, Alan Kay’s universal media machine, “Northern lights” 2007, vol. 5, p. 39-56. 8 M. Macluhan, op. cit., 1962, p. 137. 9 J.C.R. licklider, Excerpts from “Mancomputer Symbiosis”, in: “IRe Transactions on Human Factors in electronics” 1960, vol. HFe-1, p. 4-11. 197 HISTORy ReMeDIATeD: HISTORICAl KNOWleDGe IN THe AGe OF PARTICIPATORy CUlTURe Grusin10, is also related to the ability of computers to simulate all other media as well as to absorb various media messages. The limits between the visual arts, performative arts, and poetry indicated by the German thinker G.e. lessing in the 18th century can be crossed thanks to computerization, since the digital artefact combines sound and image with the impression of depth, movement, and text. The limitations of these media are largely linked to their material specificity, which loses all meaning in digital reality. As observed by lev Manovich, a prominent researcher of digital media, one could hardly expect that an emergence of a device commonly used in tasks associated with creation, dissemination, and processing of all kinds of information and which removes its material constraints would be neutral for the development of culture. The produced and processed information is the matter which allows culture to exist and grow11. Nicholas Negroponte, who observed the phenomenon of the radical growth of the availability and popularity of personal computer in the 1980s and 1990s, signals long-term cultural transformation which are going to result from it. Negroponte is being optimistic, as he mainly notices the positive effects of open access to knowledge, which used to be a prerogative of members of opulent societies and now, with the popularization of the Internet, is within everyone’s reach12. Optimism can also be found in the works of lawyer and social activist lawrence lessig, who saw opportunities for the development of a society in the practices of open sharing of information in the Internet and threats in the attempt to stop this process13. Describing the social and cultural impacts of digitization, Henry Jenkins points out the emergence of a new type of activity that breaks existing limits between the creator and recipient, the producer and consumer of cultural goods14. The new cultural model – the participation culture – is meant to rely on the common practice of processing, remixing, sharing, and commenting. In this, he emphasizes three aspects of the new type of culture15: Convergence – the permeation of cultural message between different 1. media platforms (e.g., from TV and cinema to community websites, in the form of memes, video clips, remakes); Participation – a phenomenon involving the formation of communities 2. sharing interest in a given content (fans of films, specific activities etc.), 10 J.D. Bolter, R. Grusin, Remediation. Understanding New Media, Cambridge 1999, p. 52-87. 11 l. Manovich, Software takes command: extending the language of new media, london 2013, p. 199-240. 12 N. Negroponte, Being Digital, london 1995, p. 5-17. 13 l. lessig, The future of ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world, New york 2001, p. 120-141. 14 H. Jenkins, Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, New york 2006. 15 H. Jenkins, I. Mizuko, D. Boyd, Participatory Culture In A Networked Era: A Conversation On Youth, Learning, Commerce, And Politics, Cambridge 2016. 198 WIKTOR WeRNeR, ADRIAN TRzOSS who communicate among themselves and with producers of certain goods to express their opinions and demands; Collective intelligence – the practice of sharing information (discussion 3. fora), creating content together (Wikipedia), reciprocal evaluating and reviewing (youTube, Instagram). It is also worth paying attention to the issue of digital literacy defined by Jenkins in his work Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. This list, also posted on the project group website16, shows two opposing perspectives. On the one hand, the new digital media based on the culture of participation require a technological model which allows all participants to express themselves and contribute to the development of this culture. Consequently, media (including social media) offer their users a certain range of tools to create the so-called User Generated Content, which results in a seemingly low entry threshold. On the other hand, however, the full understanding of the media and the tools accompanying them demands a new kind of knowledge — of their algorithms, social use — and more professional knowledge of the ‘digital’ field to attain success. To conclude this topic — that the ‘democratic’ nature of the new media seems illusory — only a few professionals (such as professional influencers) can ‘contend for the souls’, the rest remaining limited to a small group of ‘digital friends’. One of those sceptical towards the modern transformations in the digital world is Andrew Keen, an American entrepreneur and scientist, who in his controversial books The Internet is not the Answer and The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture makes a clear distinction between the Internet of the 1990s and the turn of the century and the present-day Web 2.0, finding its impact detrimental for professional creators, journalists, and scientists (called ‘cultural gatekeepers’). The threat is seen in the ease with which, in social networks, one can create and spread all kinds of creation, artistic and journalistic, scientific and quasi-scientific, even encyclopedic etc.17 Keen’s position did not go uncontested: the author was accused of rash judgement and elitism. However, a growing number of researchers are independently reaching similar views, including Tom Nichols, a scientist and specialist on international and security affairs, who in his book The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters points out the threats to expert knowledge from the dictates of clickability, popularity, and self-publishing practices. Citing examples from his professional career (as an expert on eastern european affairs and scientist), Nichols argues that expertise, though less ‘shiny’ and not attracting as much attention by being sensational, is definitely more credible and socially useful. On the other hand, in the conditions created by web search and 16 Website of the project New Media literacies: http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/, access: 25.05.2020. 17 A. Keen, The Cult Of The Amateur. How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture, New york 2007, p. 35-63. 199 HISTORy ReMeDIATeD: HISTORICAl KNOWleDGe IN THe AGe OF PARTICIPATORy CUlTURe social website algorithms, it becomes less visible and cannot compete with various forms of amateur creation, whose authors are not bound by any professional rules and therefore can afford sensationalism and deliberate stirring of controversy18. As Keen and Jenkins accent the role of the society in the process one should keep in mind that this is quite a generalization as nowadays computers (and other digital devices), Internet (with its service of World Wide Web) and its youngest offspring – social media – are a part of the everyday life. Taking this under further consideration a closer look into the plurality of media usage and communities build around it are advised. In the dawn of the Internet a new problem of the virtual communities emerged. Described by the Marc Smith in 199219 virtual space, which is a natural environment for those communities, was characterized by six features. These influenced the early development of those communities. In Smith’s opinion the virtual space was: aspatial, asynchronous, acorporal, but limited by the technical issues like bandwidth, astigmatic20 and anonymous. On this basis communities arised based upon different causes. later on, with the creation of social media, situation slowly begun to change. Still as space and time as well as physical participation were obsolete people started to gather around digital ways of interaction focused upon active consumption of the content (prosumption21) as the opposition to passive engagement of the early days of the Web. This content might be a characterized by the topic it concerns (for example edutainment22 or politics), by the personality of the author – leading content makers like youTubers – or by the ideas standing behind the material (activists’ accounts). Participants of the certain community gathered around the structurized channel of the information lead by the main author/content maker, were they could actively participate by commenting the materials or sharing them to their friends or with the other participants. The paradigm of participation proposed by Henry Jenkins23 evolved from the general concept of Web 2.024. Firstly, it appeared as a new way for the “inter18 T. Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, Oxford 2017, p. 107-119. 19 M.A. Smith, Voices from the WELL: The Logic of the Virtual Commons, 1993, master thesis, http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/4363, access: 18.05.2020. 20 Author recognizes astigmatic as lacking of characteristic physical features. In deeper sense visuality does not play greater role in it in this context. 21 G.Ritzer, N.Jurgenson, Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’ ,“Journal of consumer Culture” 2010, vol. 10, no 1; D. Beer., R. Burrows, Consumption, Prosumption and Participatory Web Cultures: An introduction, “Journal of Consumer Culture” 2010, vol. 10, no 1. 22 K. Maciejak, Youtube w edukacji. Strategie nadawcze wideoblogerów, Krakow 2018. 23 H. Jenkins, Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture, New york 2006; Ibidem, Confronting the Challenges… 24 T. O’ Reilly, What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, “International Journal of Digital economics” 2007, vol. 65. 206 WIKTOR WeRNeR, ADRIAN TRzOSS ries of public events. This metaphorical term is slowly replacing concrete terms in the historical awareness, such as the names of military formations from which the ‘cursed soldiers’ were recruited, that is, the Home Army and National Armed Forces. Home Army and National Armed Force are names of specific historical phenomena: resistance organizations during II World War (Home Army was a representative of legal Polish government on immigration, National Armed Force was organization of Polish nationalist movements. “The Cursed Soldiers” are, on the other hand, metaphorical term forged in the beginning of XXI c. describing heroes of Polish resistance movement (all kind) who were hunted after war by communist regime. The important factor is that the term “cursed soldiers” is not only quite new but it also change the way of understanding Polish history, from “objective” and factographical to emotional and political-directed by adding a strong emotional, eschatological layer of “cursedness”. It should be noted that the presence of this term is visible in all media: traditional and official (television, film, books), digital such as youTube, Facebook, Instagram, and in the form of various merchandise (T-shirts, badges, bumper stickers etc.). The specific interest in the ‘cursed soldiers’ term, showing its strong relationship with the anniversary celebrations (both official and political) can be illustrated by the search term graph from the Google Trends site. Figure 2. Google search results on Cursed Soldiers, Home Army and National Armed Forces from Polish region47 The correlation between the peaks of interest in ‘cursed soldiers’ and the dates of the Memorial Days (1 March) does not change the fact that the popularity of the term is growing year by year at the ‘expense’ of earlier tradition which associated the Polish struggle for independence with the names of specific formations, as shown by the rolling average data. 47 Authors own graphic based on the google.trends results. 207 HISTORy ReMeDIATeD: HISTORICAl KNOWleDGe IN THe AGe OF PARTICIPATORy CUlTURe Figure 3. Average data on google search results of Cursed Soldiers, Home Army and National Armed Forces from Polish region48 This process can be seen also in Wikipedia (Polish-speaking version). Mechanism of this site was explained before as well as papers dedicated to the issue of the Wikipedia articles discussions. In the graph below interest trends of three Wikipedia articles are presented: Cursed Soldiers (Żołnierze Wyklęci), Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and finally National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły zbrojne). The following graph represent absolute values of the unique visits on the pages dedicated to those topics during a month period, beginning with July 2015 till April 2020. There are sharp increases in interest around each 1 March of this period. Figure 4. Wikipedia search results on Cursed Soldiers, Home Army and National Armed Forces from Polish region49 This trend was “smoothed” by calculating rolling average to show unseasoned trend of interest in considered topics. 48 Authors own graphic based on the google.trends results. 49 Authors own graphic based on the wikipedia article search results. 208 WIKTOR WeRNeR, ADRIAN TRzOSS Figure 5. Average data on Wikipedia search results of Cursed Soldiers, Home Army and National Armed Forces from Polish region50 As presented later one may observe peaks in the popularity, which is correlated with the anniversaries. Also a little gain during the “exams months” is observed as in the other periods those articles do not gather much attention. 3. Conclusions Historical knowledge, as part of cultural transmission, is an ingredient of the present and not the past to which it nominally relates51. It means that is a component of the current communication processes and thus is affected by the factors which shape them. For present-day communication processes, these factors are the phenomena of convergence and remediation between various media. It is also affected by the factor of the emergence of collective mechanisms of knowledge formation (culture of participation). In the discussed examples we were able to distinguish the large importance of collective participatory processes: in the most significant (distributed, recognizable) digital media, such as popular youTube channels, the ability to build interaction with recipients is one of the most crucial conditions of the channel’ success. This implies the need to adapt the message to expectations. In consequence, the cultural message (historical knowledge) is being selected and modified in such a way as to expose its most sensational, emotional, or ludic layer. However, it is difficult to agree with Keen’s view of the de-professionalization of discourse; it is more of a re-professionalization, meaning that the professional competencies are required but do not involve the ability to reach scientific knowledge but rath50 Authors own graphic based on the Wikipedia article search results. 51 M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, londyn 1962, p. 148-165; W. Werner, Historyczność Kultury. W poszukiwaniu myślowego fundamentu współczesnej historiografii, Poznań 2009. 209 HISTORy ReMeDIATeD: HISTORICAl KNOWleDGe IN THe AGe OF PARTICIPATORy CUlTURe er to evoke emotions in recipients. As we have previously noted in Jenkins, there is a peculiar paradox of ‘professionalization’ and competency here. Against all appearances, digital media are not flooded by Keen’s ‘noble amateurs’, since the laypeople unable to gather great number of subscribers and views of their channels/profiles tend to be excluded by the quantitative mechanics (algorithms and tools, high threshold of recognition which translates into effect on recipients). Also a new kind of media narrative appeared with the concept of the “regular expert” which may lead towards a semi-professionalism in the information circulation. One should also agree with Tom Nichols that the mass egalitarianism of digital media users is opposed to traditional intellectual authorities and oriented to promote common knowledge based on stereotype, conspiracy speculations, and sensational rumors. While Wikipedia and Google may seem to different phenomena the are kind of a two sides of one coin. Remediation process is well observed within them while undergoing significant changes due to the participatory culture and web algorithms. They absorb the current “real world” trends by the “click participation” (so by the user activity online). This is stronger present on youTube where people’s expectations shape not only the popularity of topics but also the narrative and historical perspective. A paradigm of “practical past” by Michael Oakeshott and its later development by Hayden White may be the key to interpret spoken issue. To better illustrate the issue let’s look at the most popular videos (in terms of historical knowledge) on Polish youTube. These are about sexuality through epochs, nazi experiments in death camps, hiper-patriotic point of view on Polish history (Poles as invincible warriors etc.), and personal life of Polish rulers and people of culture (sex, murders, fights, generally speaking their darker side of their life). People seek entertainment via stories of the known people and issues but in the perspective relatively close to them, not in the biographies of historical persons made of marble. Summing up remediation and participatory culture brought into digital media a new quality, were (Google) it absorbs information from the users in order to return content they need (youTube). Digital media mirrors everyday life of its users even in terms of “ritualization” of process of absorbing information52 (youTube as television 2.0 with its consequences – people look for drama in TV as they look for it in the historical narrative on youTube). A new identity emerges from the daily life participation now measured by the giving (and getting) likes, shares, posting comments and grouped into different scale of this participation (from semi-passive towards extremely active like donating money to subscribed content makers). The personalized ritual of gathering (fitted) information (historical knowledge) from the real and digital world takes place as Web 2.0 is still an evolving 20 century phenomenon. Translated by Andrzej Pietkiewicz 52 B. Dziadzia, Dylematy tzw. kultury uczestnictwa, “Media i Społeczeństwo: medioznawstwo, komunikologia, semiologia, socjologia mediów” 2012, vol. 2, p.101-113.