History Extra podcast Myspace and MTV: how will future historians study the 21st century?
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Oct 29, 2025 Jane Winters, a Professor of Digital Humanities, and John Wills, a Professor in Film and Media, delve into how future historians will study the 21st century. They explore the complexities of digital archives, including social media and video games, as new historical sources. The duo discusses the challenges of technological obsolescence and the risks of data loss, particularly with platforms like MySpace. They emphasize the opportunities for richer historical narratives through diverse media and the implications of algorithms and AI on information accessibility.
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New Hybrid Forms Of Records
- Digital records mix old forms and genuinely new formats, combining text, image, moving image, memes, GIFs and emojis.
- Researchers must handle unstructured multimedia collections like web archives differently from traditional archives.
Games As Historical Gateways
- Video games act as both mirrors and makers of cultural ideas and can introduce publics to historical narratives.
- Games like Red Dead Redemption and Assassin's Creed provide immersive, interpretive access to past worlds.
Everyday Voices Enter Archives
- Social media archives put ordinary voices into the record at scale, enabling first-person histories previously rare in archives.
- This inclusion is uneven globally because internet access and archival captures skew toward the global north.