Media Boundaries and Conceptual Modelling

Between Texts and Maps

verfasst von: Øyvind Eide

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book brings together digital humanities and intermedia studies to establish the field of transformative digital intermedia studies. It does so in a model based study of the differences between texts and maps that will be important for the further development of the spatial humanities.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Part I

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

Humanists have interacted with computing machinery for more than 60 years.¹ This is a history not only of using the computer as a tool, but also of how computers have influenced our thinking. The challenges posted by algorithmic thinking have been met in different ways in the humanities over the years. Ideas from different areas of the humanities have been in active interaction with computer science, with influence moving in both directions. One example of influence from the humanities to computer science is the history behind the development of XML² (DeRose, 1999, 19–21).

Øyvind Eide

2. Texts, Maps, and the Landscape

Abstract

People move in space, and we live our lives in time. In the time-scale of a human life, our surroundings change at different speeds, from the unmoving rocks through the slow shift of the course of a river, the growth of a tree and the slow walk of an elephant, to the frenetic sniffing of a mouse. Moving through a landscape, finding one’s way, can involve all these different rhythms of change, but when we tell others how to traverse the same ground, or record our experience with the intention of communicating the journey somehow, they figure in our account quite differently.

Øyvind Eide

3. Critical Stepwise Formalisation

Abstract

In Chapter 1, modelling in digital humanities was introduced with an eye to modelling in other disciplines. In this chapter, critical stepwise formalisation will be presented as a special type of digital humanities modelling. For the sake of clarity concrete examples linked to the experiments to be described in Chapter 4 will be used. The introduction of the method will be anchored both to its practical use and to theory. The chapter will be concluded by a presentation of the general principles behind the method. The discussion will continue, based on the intervening parts of the book, in Chapter 8.

Øyvind Eide

Part II

Frontmatter

4. Case Studies

Abstract

This chapter will describe case studies in which modelling, in the form of critical stepwise formalisation, has been applied. The research was a detailed, source-based study of how geographical descriptions read from a text can be expressed as maps. The case studies exemplify how critical stepwise formalisation can be applied to intermedia studies. The goal of the model-building was not the models and maps as such, but rather the process of modelling — that is, to learn from creating and manipulating the models.¹

Øyvind Eide

5. Towards a Typology of Media Differences

Abstract

In this chapter I will summarise how the hypothesis presented in the previous chapter is supported by the evidence also presented there and outline some implications of the results. Do they point beyond the study of S1 towards a broader perspective on texts and maps in general? This will lead up to Part III where maps and texts will be discussed at a more general level.

Øyvind Eide

Part III

Frontmatter

6. Texts and Maps as Media Expressions

Abstract

In the previous chapter it was shown how the hypothesis was supported, and a typology of media differences was established based on the results from the experiments. I also discussed what the consequences might be if one proceeded to create maps based on textual information, and I outlined some general ideas about the relationships between maps and texts. In order to develop this further, I will now turn to broader theoretical landscapes.

Øyvind Eide

7. GIS and Digital Mapping

Abstract

The possibilities for integrating texts and maps and for creating map-based narratives are important in the spatial humanities, and those questions deserve both theoretical and practical studies. The results from the research described in this book are important for the application of computer-based methods for spatial information implemented in GIS and deep map systems in the humanities.¹ Such applications are usually connected to textual information, and the spatial data are often drawn from textual sources. The consequences the current work may have for the way in which we conceive digital maps and texts in academia and beyond will be discussed in this chapter. In Chapter 8, similar questions will be asked about modelling in general and critical stepwise formalisation specifically.

Øyvind Eide

8. Critical Stepwise Formalisation Reloaded

Abstract

In Chapter 7 the research presented in this book was discussed in the light of digital mapping. This chapter will discuss critical stepwise formalisation in the context of modelling in digital humanities more generally. It will be shown that critical stepwise formalisation is not incompatible with text encoding — the case study used a TEI-encoded text as a starting point — but that it goes beyond text encoding by freeing the modelling practice from the limitations of the currently used XML formalism. Critical stepwise formalisation will also be seen in the light of contemporary work in intermedia studies, with a focus on media transformations.

Øyvind Eide

Backmatter

Titel: Media Boundaries and Conceptual Modelling
verfasst von: Øyvind Eide
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-54458-2
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56623-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137544582