Mullen’s Spectrum
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 1 Mullen’s spectrum is an outline of who fits where on the line of how much digital humanities they use in their work. The spectrum is a grid that shows the level of competence toward the digital humanities. Going from category one to category ten, with each of them being on the extreme ends and category five being middle ground.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 2 Category five is what I would label as Microsoft Word. Everybody uses it. Whether it’s for work, making notes, writing a letter; it’s all the same in terms of technical skill. People can somehow mess up Microsoft word. I don’t know how they do it, but they do. Microsoft word is the standard that people use. It’s our starting point. If you get that wrong, you’re bound to get everything after that wrong too.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Categories one to four is based off of community and collaboration. Mullen’s and Terras would fit into this category. When I say collaboration, I think of a library. A place where people go to research a specific thing. You could say that the lower end of the spectrum is for those who don’t know how to build the digital humanities, but rather use them. This is the place where the more traditional scholars will be. Doing digital humanities work based off of their already existing fields. In here you might find photoshop, a tool that you can use to create your own photo from pre-existing photos. You are using a tool and therefore not creating one, so this tool places you in the lower categories, at least when you are using this specific tool.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 1 Categories six to ten involves the hard core digital coding that those in the lower categories use. The categories at the higher end of the spectrum are based off of Ramsey’s arguments. He says that in order to be considered a digital humanist, you have to know how to code. You don’t have to know the specific codes for everything, just what you are studying for. The variation in the coding is what leads to the separation of the higher levels. Ramsey also believes that disciplines can destroy themselves through overprecise definition.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 Because Ramsey’s believes that you can destroy a discipline through definition and that you need to know who to code, he gets the top spot at category ten in a Mullen Spectrum. And Mullen’s gets a category one for having the spectrum. Ramsey’s refutes Mullen’s argument which natural puts them on opposite ends of the spectrum.
I like that you set up your spectrum with numbers one to ten – I did this as well 🙂