When looking at the results from the record curation quiz data, I see the shared choices for single songs that we ‘cant afford to lose’ (Rumsey, 2017) from the Golden Record collection. I don’t know how others felt while choosing which songs were of the utmost importance to keep, but for myself it was an awkward process. After listening to Rumsey’s (2017) talk last week, I was torn between establishing a quick filter for selection, while at the same time,  feeling burdened by the consequences of the wrong choices. While looking through other student’s blog spaces, I noticed that my apprehensiveness at the task was mirrored. In one blog, its author decided to chose songs that didn’t have lyrics and that evoked emotion:  https://sites.google.com/learn.sd23.bc.ca/540-course-work/weekly-assignments/task-8?authuser=0.  Another blogger, chose songs to keep according to the variety of instruments they used, and their tone and melody:  https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540judytai/2021/03/05/task-8-golden-record-curation-assignment/.  Knowing that the selection process in the end was arbitrary and completely subjective to each person, the weight given to each song no longer seemed to hold any real significance.

As we see in this screenshot, where I chose to view the song data by node weight, we can see that Track 14: Melancholy Blues, was considered essential by many participants. While looking at the same image, we can also see that Track 18: Fifth Symphony holds less weight. Although more people selected Melancholy Blues as important to keep on the record, for a number of varied reasons, we still have to remember that the song was chosen based on the experiences and perceptions of a certain group of people. If we look at one of the student filters I shared above, the musicality of a piece, we must consider what is considered musical to one person, may seem bland to another. What we seek depends wholly on our contexts and interests. Maybe if we had taken a quiz ranking the ‘best’ filters to use when choosing the songs, the results would have been closer to objective, but never completely there.

If we look at this second image, we can see that there are some outliers. These song selectors have no links to other members. This is probably due to the fact that they had unique opinions about what songs should stay on the Golden Record. Some of the songs also lack links to others. When watching The Internet: How Search Works (Code.org, 2017) I learned about how the internet doesn’t search in real time, but instead has a compiled database based on prior searches. This means when I am searching for an answer to my question, the answers I receive are a compilation of other ‘popular’ questions and answers. The political and educational ramifications of this are huge, as individuals who are searching, but not represented through the online database, may only have access to information that is popular. This doesn’t account for whether or not a person’s search results are true, valuable or applicable to them. Task 8 and 9 have shown us that arbitrary selection choices, about what to document,  may change our very knowledge base! As Rumsey (2017) mentioned in her talk, our choices for what to keep can impact whether or not we look back on a false narrative.

Brown University. (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?” [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/FBrahqg9ZMc

Code.org. (2017, June 13). The Internet: How Search Works . Retrieved from https://youtu.be/LVV_93mBfSU