Chapter 6-7

荣华富贵

    Chapters 6 and 7 collectively construct a critical perspective on the operational foundation and knowledge dissemination of digital humanities, shifting the focus from technical elements and tools to the socio-technical contexts and academic ecology in which they are situated. These two chapters complement each other: Chapter 6 examines the structural constraints and inclusive dilemmas inherent in digital environments, while Chapter 7 dissects the transformative impact of digitalization on academic publication and its accompanying disciplinary reflections, together revealing the complex interplay between technology and humanities in the digital age.

    Chapter 6, centered on "Digital Environments," transcends the technical description of digital platforms and delves into the profound social inequalities embedded within these environments. The chapter redefines the "digital divide" as a multi-dimensional issue rather than a simple binary between access and non-access to technology. It argues that contemporary digital inequality manifests not only in the global gap between developed and developing nations in infrastructure construction — such as the inadequate network coverage and high access costs in many developing regions — but also in the "skill divide" and "opportunity divide" at the individual level. For instance, even if individuals in underprivileged groups gain access to digital devices, they may still be excluded from digital humanities practices due to insufficient training in digital literacy, such as inability to use annotation tools or analyze digital archives. The chapter takes newly industrializing countries as a typical example, noting their ambivalent relationship with digitalization: while actively promoting infrastructure construction to integrate into the information society, they also face challenges such as cultural adaptation of technologies and brain drain of technical talents, which further exacerbates the imbalance in the development of digital humanities globally.

    More importantly, Chapter 6 points out that digital environments themselves are not neutral carriers but have built-in power structures. The design logic of mainstream digital platforms often reflects the values and needs of dominant cultural groups, making it difficult for minority cultures to gain equal expression space. For example, digital archives dominated by Western languages and perspectives may marginalize non-Western historical materials, leading to a "digital colonialism" in the process of knowledge production. This critical perspective reminds digital humanists that when constructing digital environments, they must take inclusiveness as a core principle, such as developing multilingual platforms and designing user-friendly interfaces for different groups, to avoid technology becoming a new tool of exclusion.

    Chapter 7, "Publication: Pre-release, Release, and Beyond," reinterprets the academic publication process in the digital context and its far-reaching impact on the disciplinary nature of digital humanities. A key insight of the chapter is that digital publication has broken the linear and closed model of traditional print publication, forming an open and interactive knowledge dissemination mechanism. The "pre-release" link, such as releasing draft papers on academic blogs or preprint platforms, allows scholars to obtain timely feedback from peers during the research process, realizing the "collaborative creation" of knowledge. This model not only accelerates the iteration of research results but also lowers the threshold for young scholars to participate in academic discussions, injecting vitality into the development of the discipline.

    The chapter also focuses on the fierce debates around copyright, digital rights management (DRM), and open access in the digital publication era. It argues that the copyright system established for print media faces obvious limitations in the digital age: excessive DRM protection may restrict the sharing and reuse of academic resources, while unregulated open access may infringe on the intellectual property rights of creators. Taking digital humanities projects such as open-access digital archives as examples, the chapter proposes a balanced path: adopting a "creative commons" license model that clarifies the scope of use and attribution requirements, which can both protect the legitimate rights of authors and promote the public availability of academic resources. This discussion also triggers deeper reflections on the disciplinary identity of digital humanities: compared with the traditional humanities that emphasize individual creation, digital humanities, with its open publication model, highlights the characteristics of collective collaboration, which challenges the traditional academic evaluation system centered on single-author papers.

    Furthermore, Chapter 7 connects digital publication with the disciplinary transformation of digital humanities, echoing the discussion on the "discursive transition from humanities computing to digital humanities" in related academic studies. The chapter points out that the open and interactive nature of digital publication has expanded the connotation of digital humanities research. Scholars are no longer limited to text analysis or tool development but begin to treat "digital publication itself" as a research object, exploring issues such as the evolution of academic communication patterns and the construction of digital academic ethics. This disciplinary reflection shows that digital publication is not only a means of disseminating research results but also a driving force for the maturation and renewal of the discipline.

   Together, Chapters 6 and 7 construct a holistic understanding of digital humanities practice: digital environments provide the operational foundation for the discipline, while digital publication shapes its knowledge dissemination model, and both are accompanied by issues of inequality and disciplinary identity. These discussions remind us that digital humanities is not a simple combination of technology and humanities but a complex field involving technology, society, and culture. Only by addressing the inequalities in digital environments and establishing a sustainable digital publication mechanism can digital humanities truly realize its value of promoting the innovation and publicization of humanistic knowledge.