i.
Significant Outcomes
As argued throughout this exegetical-thesis, the significant outcome of this research is the provision of at least one example of the potential of electronic scholarship for independent, applied and authoritative
postgraduate research in the Humanities. I have, a) provided an interactive electronic document that attempts to objectify globalisation in an inner city suburb and, b) offered a critical examination of this model of scholarship here. This is within the broader practice and discourse of
electronic scholarship in the Humanities.
As previously argued, Milkbar.com.au differs from many other Humanities Computing projects as it was conceptually framed from the outset with the Internet as the communication medium in mind. Most Humanities Computing
projects deliver pre-existing archives to the web through large-scale digitisation projects. This project was designed specifically for it.
This research could not possibly seek to provide concrete links between globalisation and the local but I have applied the technology in such a way that the user can speculatively make the leaps. They can test some of
the generally accepted claims of globalisation and objectify it within more evocative and personal frameworks. The conceptual work involved in designing electronic research such as this is seriously underestimated. Most Humanities Computing projects provide democratic access to important
archival resources but do not make major conceptual advances.
As I have argued, not all histories are appropriate for electronic scholarship as some are better suited for the academic codex or other mediums. This is something that needs to be (conceptually) assessed carefully. The post Second World War period, for
instance, is a media rich time and thus electronic scholarship can effectively communicate some of the historical traces of this period. Part of this record is the oral record where individuals can be recorded and actually be seen and heard.
Oral history projects are particularly well suited for the Internet because they directly utilise some of the capacities of new media tools. They have the ability to lend an historical narrative to the medium and are legalistically and economically suited
for independent research. The Internet allows the participants to be both seen and heard and allows oral interviews to be both indexed and arranged according to the analytical and thematic structures of the Historian.
In fact a large and influential
Australian project, the Australians at War Film Archive, has
utilised a similar methodology to Milkbar.com.au.(1)
This project (that records over twenty thousand hours of interviews
with Australian war veterans using mini-digital video cameras)
employs a methodology where a veteran is interviewed for six
hours and then a searchable transcript of the interview is provided
on the Internet. Although for obvious reason the actual video
is not available online (obvious if you know anything about
compression) the directors of this project (similar to Milkbar.com.au)
decided not to cut or edit the recordings. This is because it
was deemed that it would be of greater historical significance
at a later date.
Further research with Milkbar.com.au could include user studies to assess how an academic work built in the public sphere is being utilised by the public. Although email responses and web statistical software have
provided some indication, they have not indicated so far what users have learnt about globalisation. Perhaps in some ways this work does assume a future audience as hypertextual literacy is not well understood outside of the academy.
What I have tried to communicate about globalisation is that it is a complex and contingent term that affects groups and individuals differently. My original assessment of the term is that it is mostly a creation of
post industrialisation and that the community that I was objectifying is an outstanding landscape to evoke the phenomena. This original assessment has not changed.
It
would be difficult for a user of Milkbar.com.au not to come
away from the site with a keen understanding of Fitzroy, an
appreciation of some of it uniqueness, an understanding of some
of the changes that are occurring and a speculative assessment
on why they are occurring within the four hermeneutics. And
perhaps the most ‘global’ ingredient of Fitzroy is that it enjoys
a universal banality that I am sure the user will discover after
twelve hours of video discussions! more>>
(1)
Australians
at War Film Archive is developed by Michael Caulfiled of Mullion
Creek Productions.
Authored
by Craig Bellamy© 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
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