Abstract

As technology has grown in recent decades, many fields of study have been affected. This thesis will consider how technology might continue to impact the field of the historian and what historical research and writing might look like in the distant future. This project will attempt to demonstrate the potential sources of a future historian, how those sources might have been stored, how historians might interpret those sources, and what historical writing itself might look like. This thesis will demonstrate these aspects in a creative manner in the form of a future historical scholarly article from the 26th century looking back and analyzing the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. In this article the future historian will examine how Social Media played a role in the election of Donald Trump, considering Russian interference and Trump’s own use of Twitter. This project also includes a rationale where the research of Thesis and decisions regarding the creative articles are explained. The rationale discusses how electronic sources, specifically Social Media, might be used by future historians and how those sources might be stored digitally by examining the current preservation of Social Media, the Internet Archive, and trends in current archives. The rationale also considers how the historical viewpoints of Empiricism and Postmodernism will be used in the future.

Semester/Year of Award

Spring 2018

Mentor

Jackie Jay

Mentor Professional Affiliation

History

Access Options

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

Bachelor Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Scholars

Degree Level

Bachelor's

Department

History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies

Department Name when Degree Awarded

History

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