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DOI:10.18503/2658-3186-2023-7-3-31-38
Abstract. The presented work analyzes the use of crowdsourcing in digital projects in the field of historical heritage and collective memory. The author reveals the ideological and technical basis of projects related to deciphering manuscripts of historical documents and converting them into printed text; correction of digitized document texts; geotagging the photos and images; creating documents on behalf of contemporaries of the era or participants in historical events. Basing on the study of specific projects, the author comes to the conclusion that the crowdsourcing, on the one hand, can help the professional community in solving problems of large-scale routine work, such as deciphering manuscripts, collecting and preserving documents and artifacts valuable for historical science. But, on the other hand, the crowdsourcing projects that invite the general public to act as witnesses to the historical era they are living through and document collective memory most often initially give volunteers a very specific point of view and ideological background. In such cases, crowdsourcing appears as a manipulation technology that mobilizes and shapes public opinion. It is quite symptomatic that the creators of digital crowdsourcing projects upon the collective memory, without hiding their skepticism regarding historical science and demonstratively opposing themselves to professional historians, archivists and museum staff, often convince the “crowd” that they should play a key role in determining the narrative of the past, formation of archival and museum collections. Nevertheless, with all the ambiguity of certain aspects of the crowdsourcing, one thing seems indisputable ‒ that it actualizes the value of the past and the need to preserve historical heritage and collective memory.
Keywords: crowdsourcing, virtual volunteers, project, historical heritage, collective memory.
Author:
Alexey G. Ivanov, Associate Professor, Candidate of History, Associate Professor at the Department of World History, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (NMSTU), Magnitogorsk, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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For citation
Ivanov A. G. Crowdsouring in DigitaL Projects in the Field of Historical Heritage and Collective Memory, Gumanitarno-pedagogicheskie issledovaniya [Humanitarian and pedagogical Research], 2023, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 31–38.