Socio-epistemic arenas of historical cognition

Abstract

Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of the problem of the production of historical knowledge in the digital age. The author believes that historical science, existing in the paradigm of «Digital Humanities», has acquired a new object of cognition – collective memory, abandoning the study of the past as a non-existent reality in favor of the study of ideas about it. In the multi-channel communication process, the formation of socio-epistemic arenas brings historical knowledge and historical memory together. Theoretical analysis. Socio-epistemic arenas are communication platforms for the production of historical knowledge developed by professional scientists, «smart crowds» and digital technologies in collective work formats. Participants in socio-epistemic arenas carry out distributed cognition, which is associated with the social context and collective memory, as it involves the inclusion of all previous experience of understanding historical reality in new interpretations of the past. Conclusion. The participation of the masses of Internet users in the study of History, who appropriate the results of collective research work, leads to the leveling of the boundaries between historical knowledge and historical memory. The principles of the rhetorical arenas of the communication space and civil science determine the structure of socio-epistemic arenas, the functioning of which is subordinated to the logic of the media.

Keywords

• socio-epistemic arenas
• rhetorical arenas
• historical knowledge
• historical epistemology
• social epistemology
• distributed cognition
• historical memory
• collective memory