Week 8: Jarratt Taylor

In the overview to this week’s websites, Helen notes, “All three of these works have some powerful connections in the ways that they draw us in as participants, while keeping us distanced as observers.” While reading the paper “Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5,” which overviewed the project planning and implementation of the Hurricane Archive Database, the meaning of Helen’s statement became clear. The HADB exists in an inbetween place called Web 1.5. The author says, “It floats between the uneditable Web 1.0 and the editable Web 2.0.” This is Web 1.5. They wanted to create a digital archive and encourage public participation without losing the integrity of the evidence collected. They also wanted the public to participate, contribute, and have some control over how their items exist on the web, while protecting those contributions from third party editing by those who may disagree with a perspective that is unlike their own.

It’s a complicated space where traditional notions of archiving and database building conflict with the freedom of use that people have come to expect from the Internet. This is familiar ground in a lot ways. Most of the traditional media companies referenced in “Spreadable Media” have had to contend with the same issues when putting their material on the web, though the mission of an online site that wants to exist as an archive is a decidedly different organism than the media company. The HADB wants to protect its contributors while also administering quality assurance. In order to give people the sense that they could trust the archive with their stories and artifacts from such a traumatic event in their lives, they had to compromise by putting some limits to the degree that people could alter the content. The media companies are trying to protect their material as well. In their case though, it’s not out of sense of responsibility to the people who make it, but to the profit that it could make.

The HADB exists in the middle of a continuum with respect to online archiving sites contending with Web 2.0, whereas Post Secret Archive and The Good Life are at opposite ends. Post Secret Archive allows the most interaction as an observer and possibly is the most Web 2.0 of these projects. It had an interesting transition from its original state, in which it didn’t allow any interaction, to an archival site that incorporates the observer. People are now able to comment on the secrets that are posted and offer advice and support, which surprisingly most people do. Still, the observers can only get so close since the contributors are anonymous. It makes sense that this site would have such a connection with an observer, or be a space that would spark discussions, since the posters are expressing everyday worries that a lot of people can relate to. The site covers a wide range of issues so it has the ability to drawn a lot of people in. It also allows sharing which isn’t a component of either the HADB or The Good Life.

The Good Life adheres more closely to a traditional database model and feels uneditable. The only control an observer has is similar to a search on a database. She can set the parameters for the types of interviews she would like to view. The open-ended aspects were done in the preproduction and production phases of the project. The interviews are unedited by the filmmaker. He shows the question he asked and then he gives the answer by the interviewee. He said he did this in order to make a dialogue instead of an interview, but this goal feels stifled by the presentation and/or website design. This is evident in the section called “voice your opinion.” In space where you imagine there would be an extensive discussion or dialogue there are only four posts. If observers can’t be participants and aren’t able to continually interact with your site then it will not live on. The creator realized this actually. He said that it was only a snapshot and that it was already dead because things change so quickly in the offline and online world. It’s a wonder that he didn’t make it so the site could morph as new political issues related to democracy arose throughout the Latin American countries that he profiled.