I tape therefore I am: excavating digital journalism's lieux de memoire through oral history.

Silver, Christopher

Abstract

This chapter explores the methodological and thematic parallels between digital journalism and oral history. Oral historian and "guerilla journalist" Studs Terkel’s statement "I tape therefore I am" frames an initial discussion of journalism history as it emerged during the high modern era. The chapter then goes on to consider how oral history's attentiveness to memory can address some of the ways in which journalism studies has struggled to incorporate the historic. The journalistic interpretive community offers a conceptual bridge for the historicization of digital journalism through oral history interviews in this regard. The chapter then goes on to contrast oral history and journalistic interview practices, arguing that a certain symmetry between digital journalism and oral history is not a sufficient basis for fruitful inquiries per se. Finally, the chapter concludes by proposing an agenda for oral histories of digital journalism which embraces the conceptual affinities between objects of journalism and the lieux de mémoire approach to history.

Citation

SILVER, C. 2024. I tape therefore I am: excavating digital journalism's lieux de memoire through oral history. In Tofalvy, T. and Vobič, I. (eds.). Histories of digital journalism. London: Routledge [online], chapter 3, pages 35-46. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003492436-5

• Online Publication Date: Oct 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Nov 11, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: May 1, 2026
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 35-46
• Book Title: Histories of digital journalism
• Chapter Number: Chapter 3
• ISBN: 9781032795072
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003492436-5
• Keywords: Digital journalism; Oral History; Journalistic interview practices
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2565447