Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity

Citation

Fourie, I. (2009), "Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity", Online Information Review, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 838-839. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520910985765

Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity is a thoroughly researched and well‐argued contribution to the subject literature of the digital environment. Martin Hand notices subtle interconnections between analogue and digital worlds and does not hesitate to address issues of concern. The lines of argument follow clearly and are well substantiated from the substantial subject literature. The style of discourse is, however, scholarly, requiring the reader to focus closely: it is not meant as a quick “how‐to‐fix‐it” manual or easy guide with solutions.

The book's main intention is to examine how digital technologies and techniques are being enfolded into specific institutional and broader cultural environments. As Hand explains:

It is about the cultural significance of shifts from analogue to digital but it is not about the triumph of digitization in any homogenous sense. It is often about the rather uneasy alliances between analogue and digital objects, practices and processes, and how we might understand this from both the lofty heights of theory and the grounded practices of those directly engaged with taking the digital turn.

Apart from an introductory chapter and a concluding chapter, Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity offers five chapters. In the introductory chapter the author explains his interpretation of “digital” and “culture” and explains the rationale and scope of the five chapters to follow. Chapter 2 (Hardware to everyware: narratives or promise and threat) explores key ideas and concepts drawn from social and cultural theory concerning what the “digital turn” may involve. Chapter 3 (On the materials of digital culture) concerns implicit theories of technology in the dominant narratives of digitisation. “If digital culture is primarily framed through a pervasive dualism of revolutionary change versus continuity then, I argue, subtle forms of determinism underlie both types of accounts”.

Chapter 4 (A people's network: access and the indefiniteness of learning) deals with key debates and practices concerning “digital citizenship” in relation to public access to digital culture. A close link to knowledge is also drawn. After considering government reasons for public access, Hand looks at the responses by public libraries. In Chapter 5 (Becoming direct: interactivity and the digital product) a major financial services company is considered to follow an attempt to ensure digital interactivity between the company and the consumer.

Chapter 6 (Lost in translation: authenticity and the ontology of the archive) deals with the importance of authenticity with regard to modern memory in the digitization of national archives. In the concluding chapter Hand raises arguments around information and materiality, forms of subject positioning across sites and the issues of loss and recovery in digital culture.

Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity concludes with a good index and a very impressive bibliography that can guide the reader to further publications.

Although a perfect match for the needs of the scholarly community in digital contexts, the publication seems less suitable for the reader looking for a quick review or easy solution (probably not the target audience). This means that it might be less tempting for managers, policy makers and practitioners in digital environments to read the book. Considering the wealth of thought‐provoking arguments raised I would recommend that an attempt should at least be made to look at what Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity has to offer.

Assuming that Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity is aimed at the scholarly reader, including researchers and postgraduate students, it can stimulate debate and reflection on a variety of key issues. It is therefore strongly recommended to the scholarly communities from different fields involved with digital environments and especially for library and information science.