Study on integration method of mass & social media and disaster digital archive

Memory is fallible. But even when it can be relied upon there is an intrinsic limit to its longevity - as people die, so too do their memories and the ability for those still living to appreciate what was once remembered. For personal and private details, such as an individual's first holiday, or the way their mother looked when she once walked into a room, there is almost something beautiful about those types of memories remaining the property of the individual remembering them; it is perhaps fitting that they die with the person who can remember. However, for historical events, capturing and preserving memories can be extremely important in a whole manner of ways. Of course, the 'reality' of past events, such as wars and natural disasters, are multifaceted - there is no single truth to these events, so to gain a full appreciation for how things were during these monumental events, we need to be able to access the viewpoints of many different people in many different ways. The internet has helped with the creation and collation of archives of materials that provide us with a means of accessing the different 'realities' of past events. However, simply uploading swathes of first-hand accounts and dozens of photographs is not always enough to fully capture these 'realities' or encourage individuals to mine these archives for information. Clearly, the need for a new approach to archiving and the presentation of those archives is needed. It is with that in mind that Professor Hidenori Watanave and his team have embarked on a series of different, but related projects. Based at The University of Tokyo Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, Watanave's team is focused on finding new and innovative ways of drawing the public's attention to the value of archived materials and creating motivations for the use of them.