Source material in the electronic age
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Topic started by Through A Glass Darkly (changeling)
A paper bag in the breeze.
A topic from Literature: Biographies and Autobiographies
changelingTue 13/05/08 07:56 |
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I am currently reading Fiona MacCarthy's biography of Lord Byron, which is proving to be rather good. It did get me thinking, though, about what source material will be available to biographers and historians of the technological age? Prior to the second half of the twentieth century, communication was largely reliant on the written word - particularly letters, plus newspapers, news sheets and the like. However, with the growing use of telephones through the last century, and the demise of the handwritten letter in favour of e-mail, communication is now ephemeral. I, for one, don't retain many e-mails, apart from those I consider it wise to keep, or perhaps for sentimental reasons. Hence, there won't be the availability of written material for researchers to draw on. However, I guess the written word was rarely used by anyone other than the middle- and upper-classes in the past, so historians of the working classes have rarely had the luxury of the written resource? |
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