From day one “Documenting the Now” held the preservation of online social justice movements as a value and put particular focus on the Black Lives Matter movement . Social media platforms have a unique relationship to social justice movements as they are incredible tools for capturing the live reactions of millions of people to world events.
An example of this being the event that spurred this project which was the shooting of Michael Brown who was a black teenager that was the victim of police brutality. During a protest, activists were met with continued police brutality and many took to social media speak out against what was happening. “Documenting the Now” was then created as a way to archive and preserve the history of this movement.
Social media platforms, in this case as well as others, serves as an important historical document when it comes to modern day movements. However, this data is often times hard to protect as the internet is ever changing and sites run the risk of becoming defunct or subject to censorship. To this end, it was important for the team at “Documenting the Now” to create a tool that could archive the modern day experiences of diverse voices as without a way to protect that data it could be gone all too easily.
This directly relates back to the value of diversity within the field of digital humanities . By acknowledging the struggles of those around us and using digital preservation techniques to protect the voices of diverse communities, “Documenting the Now” helps those communities control their narratives.