Crowdsourcing: A Critical Discussion on Some Issues of a Challenging New Practice in the Digitization of Photographic Heritage

Abstract

This article deals with a certain number of issues raised by the use of crowdsourcing in the management of photographic archives. Although crowdsourcing is (and should remain) a vital instrument in the description and analysis of photographic material, it does not really take into account certain problems such as the difference between information and knowledge, the reduction of knowledge to merely cognitive elements (at the expense of social, political, and ideological belief systems) and the creative tension between the unique artefact on the one hand and serialization on the other hand. Relying on the work by Yves Citton and his plea for the role of interpretation in humanist research, this article will offer a new way of "framing" the technique of crowdsourcing in a larger interpretive context. ; This article deals with a certain number of issues raised by the use of crowdsourcing in the management of photographic archives. Although crowdsourcing is (and should remain) a vital instrument in the description and analysis of photographic material, it does not really take into account certain problems such as the difference between information and knowledge, the reduction of knowledge to merely cognitive elements (at the expense of social, political, and ideological belief systems) and the creative tension between the unique artefact on the one hand and serialization on the other hand. Relying on the work by Yves Citton and his plea for the role of interpretation in humanist research, this article will offer a new way of "framing" the technique of crowdsourcing in a larger interpretive context.