Kobiety w cyfrowych strumieniach dziejów. Tematyka kobieca na polskich kanałach historycznych portalu YouTube

Abstract

In this article, the authors confront the thesis found in historical discourse about the dominance of male figures in historical narratives present in the public sphere. In order to do so, they analyse the new research field that is the social networking site YouTube and the most popular channels on historical topics contained therein. The main research question is whether women are marginalised in the narratives contained in the sources discussed, in which contexts they appear and what is the reception of the films in which they appear. In addition, the authors look at the question of the form of historical narratives. The study combines quantitative methods (descriptive statistics, correspondence analysis) as well as qualitative methods (Northrop Frye’s typology of story motifs. For this purpose, 551 films were analysed, which were then annotated using seven groups of tags corresponding to the content of the sources ‑ concerning the functioning of female characters and the subject matter of the films. As a result of the analyses carried out, it was observed that the thesis of the absolute dominance of male characters in historical narratives does not fully hold true under the conditions of Web 2.0 sources in terms of quantity, while in terms of content it cannot be accepted unreservedly in the context of the very diverse use of female themes in social media resources.