From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative

Contents 1 Curation (Digital Rhetoric) 1.1 Overview 1.2 Who curates? 1.3 What is an exhibit? 1.3.1 Visual 1.3.2 Audio 1.4 Debates of digital curation 1.5 Examples & Abilities 1.6 References

Curation (Digital Rhetoric)

Overview

Curation in digital rhetoric is the process involving the compiling of information for the purpose of constructing a text in order to present a specific argument. Curation at a basic level, involves the selection,organization, and presentation of information accessed from archives. With such a vast amount of data available across a wide range of media, the opportunities of curation are reimagined under the scope of the digital world.

"Cathy Davidson explains that the first wave of humanities computing brought with it the onset of digital curation—a process that made archival materials widely available on the Web and “transformed how we do research and who can do it." (709) ^[1]

Who curates?

The digital age has made access to archives instantly available to anyone with wifi access, making it possible for anyone to create a text for the purpose of presenting an argument. Traditionally, curators have fallen under the umbrellas of science, history, art, and many other scholarly subjects. ^[2] Now these subjects are available in their multitude of archives to draw from when a digital curator sets out to compose a text.

What is an exhibit?

The webpage offers a canvas for the scholar now to attempt to build an argument made up of various media for the purpose of building perspectives.

Visual

• Photograph
• Video

Audio

• Music
• Sound Clips

The ability to use these media collectively has been available in museums but what makes digital curation so unique is the

Debates of digital curation

Todd Presner explains, although these new data-mining technologies may “threaten to overwhelm traditional approaches to knowledge,” they do “[allow] us to ask questions that weren’t previously possible.^[3]

Examples & Abilities

Digital Curation for the purpose of rhetoric can span an immense range of archives; historical, scientific, literary, artistic to name a few. Listed below are a sample array of curated archives in digital:

Walt Whitman Archive

The Waste Land Hypertext

References

Resources

1. ↑ http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CE/0762-nov2013/CE0762Seizing.pdf
2. ↑ http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/curating-the-digital-world-past-preconceptions-present-problems-possible-futures/
3. ↑ http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CE/0762-nov2013/CE0762Seizing.pdf