Charlotte- What is DH?

After the readings, it has become more apparent that digital humanities is more than just the study of how humans use digital mediums to advance their understanding of concepts. I will start by saying I enrolled in this class without even pondering or considering what the phrase digital humanities meant. After reading the ‘Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0,’ I fear I was even more confused. I could appreciate the creativity that was put into creating the Manifesto, but I still decided to go and do my own Google research before I bought the book. I had no preconceived notion of digital humanities, and I have to confess that I am still struggling to create a solid definition of what it is, but I think that is partially the point.

This is what I have gathered…

Digital Humanities can be any project created with educational and digital components that help advance the understanding of a topic. It isn’t just a YouTube video or an Instagram post made to entertain. It is typically a thought-out project that has fundamental components so that it can then be shared and presented. 

These projects can be created on existing digital platforms and, as the book states, include: remediation/mediation, datafication/modeling, processing/analytics, presentation/ display, and sustainability/preservation. When creating a project, it is important to know what materials you will be using, how you are transferring your information onto a digital medium, and how it will be interpreted by the audience. (Which includes knowing your audience.)

The first example of digital humanities that came to mind was digital journalism, like ‘Scrollytelling.’ (The website Shorthand can be super helpful when creating your own scrollytelling story) Companies or organizations are transferring their physical articles onto the web so that it can be easily accessed by more people. But when it comes to digital journalism, journalists don’t just publish their work as if they were writing for a paper. They consider the vast amount of competition online, so many use the ‘Components and activities of digital humanities’ to capture and educate their audiences. 

Comments

  1. Adeline SmithSeptember 7, 2026 at 6:03 PM

    Hi Charlotte! I definitely relate to still being a little confused about what exactly counts as digital humanities. I agree that maybe that’s part of the point, since DH can include so many different things. I also liked how you pointed out that just because something is online doesn’t automatically make it DH. There has to be some kind of purpose behind using the digital tools.

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  2. Dr. MSeptember 8, 2026 at 10:36 AM

    Yes, purpose and considering the audience. When looking at processes, presentation, and participation we can see how much thought and work goes into a project, not just throwing things onto a website, it was a carefully selected group of materials and went through a rigorous process for curation and presentation. "Scrollytelling" is a great example for journalism. Composed for the medium to be read on the medium is also a good point, one of the foundational definitions of "born-digital" texts.

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