NCRM videos

Emily Gibbs: The Future of using Oral History to understand the Cold War in Britain

08-11-2018

Emily Gibbs presents at methods@manchester Methods Fair 2018. Abstract: “You’ve got much more media now. On your iPhone, on your Facebook you know”: The Future of using Oral History to understand the Cold War in Britain. This paper seeks to explore the future of using oral history to understand the Cold War in Britain in the present day. It will explore a vast array of topics within the digital humanities, considering how modern technological developments such as the internet, social media, and video gaming (Virtual Reality (VR) in particular) will and have changed how we understand and consider the past when listening to people and their memories. The paper shall also consider how technology has both advanced and hindered the use of oral history (such as privacy anxieties and computing advancements). Because the Cold War is still the recent past, many people who lived through it now also use many new technologies which have altered and shifted their memory recall, and the way they present information and knowledge in an oral history interview. Thus, this paper shall argue that when we conduct and use oral history interviews, historians must consider the new channels of knowledge that exist in the 21st century and the ways in which these inform and influence the interview. Through Google, participants are able to ‘fact check’ themselves; through VR, participants are able to visit places and experience the Cold War even though they weren’t physically present; and through new privacy anxieties, the processes and ethics of oral history must change to ensure the protection and confidentiality of participants. In short, this paper shall cover a broad scope of topics to discuss the future of oral history interviewing in the present day, using the Cold War as a historical case study. What technologies should we consider when utilising oral history as a methodology? What is the future of oral history in 2018? How can we understand perceptions and memories of the British Cold War in the present day, and what digital cultures have influenced these?