Archives in the Cloud: Opportunities, Challenges and Methods in Engaging with Online Sources as Archives

This chapter explores the questions around how traditional archive historians apply their particular methods and skills to online sources around extremism, in particular focusing on two case studies of practice by the authors. It suggests two possible approaches, that of the transpositional approach where traditional skills are simply transposed into the online world to study online material in isolation, and also the hybrid approach where various methods are used to study online text as part of a continuum of sources. The chapter contends that the nature of the online differs in some fundamental aspects from traditional archives, and that historians must take on some role as self-archivists to impose an understood and accepted order onto online material. Ultimately, however, the online space is essential and fruitful study for historians to apply their skills to – as many research outputs have shown – and that a next generation of historians, whatever the era they study, will need to develop those digital humanities skills so that they can continue to apply their craft.