Digital Curation’s Dilemma: Contrasting Different

Uses, Purposes, Goals, Strategies, and Values

J. Richard Stevens, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA

Abstract: The creation, storage and presentation of digital artifacts is an increasingly popular area of interest for a wide
range of communities. Once an almost proprietary term for museums and library science programs, the term “digital
curation” has recently become a buzzword within more generalist communities. Recently, digital curation has become an
umbrella concept to describe activities related to digital preservation, data curation, electronic records management,
copyright management, digital asset management, data collection, reporting and presentation activities, and even content
remixing activities. Yakel (2007) observed four discrete treatments of digital curation in government reports and called
for increased attention to the development of the term’s meaning as diverse communities become involved in the
dialogue. This article explores the different usages of the term, those usage’s relationships to the attention economy for
different groups (for example, journalists use the term to emphasize the attracting near-term attention to ephemeral
digital artifacts while librarians emphasize the long-term storage and preservation of digital artifacts), and confusion
created by the different agendas of its use. This article explores relevant literature from multiple disciplines and analyzes
contemporary media industry sources to consider the differences implied by the term’s use, including the differences in
political economy, community goals, perceptions of content life cycles, the utilization of short-tail and long-tail access
strategies and even expressed data values.

Keywords: Digital Curation, Journalism, Library Science, Preservation

Introduction

T he field of journalism has historically maintained an uncomfortable balancing act between

the forces of industry/practice and the traditions of scholarship/academia (Reese 1999).
This tension often increases confusion when the industry faces significant challenges,
such as when the emergence of new technology platforms change the industry status quo.
As the emergence of digital technologies began to affect various segments of American culture,
some journalism academics began to call for comprehensive studies of the issues involved, as it
was largely thought the changes to the media system would be profound (Newhagen and Rafaeli
1996). Such predictions proved accurate, and the news media industry experienced a period of
profound change as it found its practices, business models and culture challenged by emerging
technologies.
Many of these changes were judged to pose negative effects upon the quality of journalism
production (Witschge and Nygren 2009, Ursell 2001), while a few scholars pointed to new
opportunities presented by the democratization of new communication technologies (Sundar
2000; Pavlik 1999). A core concern of this period of change involved the entrance of amateur
participants in the news dissemination process (Matheson 2004, Stevens 2005), first by bloggers
and later by the expansion of the amount of available content coming from social media.
Most professionals in the journalism industry initially ignored or even closed ranks against
the idea of engaging user-generated content, though some media outlets eventually began to
engaged and even incorporate user-generated content in their coverage (Domingo et.al. 2009;
Thurman 2008). The most recent wave of discussions around this controversy has taken place
under the debate whether “curation journalism” is a worthwhile endeavor. The term “curation”
has in recent years become a journalism buzz word for the practice of gathering social media
expressions related around a specific topic and presenting those resources for consideration
alongside a journalistic contribution. In effect, journalistic curation has become the umbrella
term for the incorporation of user-generated content alongside professional industry-created
journalism.

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society

Volume 9, 2013, techandsoc.com, ISSN: 1832-3669
© Common Ground, J. Richard Stevens, All Rights Reserved
Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, KNOWLEDGE, AND SOCIETY

However, the term “curation” has quite a different meaning in academia, a meaning in
significant conflict with the use of the term within the journalism industry. This article explores
the academic and journalistic origins of the competing definitions of the term, exploring the
differences in political economy, community goals, perceptions of content life cycles, the
utilization of short-tail and long-tail access strategies and even expressed data values.

Digital Curation in Academic Literature

In academia, the terminology surrounding the digital curation came largely from the field of
library and information science (LIS). In that context, the term is primarily used to signify the
need to preserve and maintain research data, cultural expressions and other forms of digital
content in a form that will make such materials available to future generations (Giaretta 2005;
Abbot 2008).
The original recognition of the core needs was first articulated in the Preserving Digital
Information report of the U.S. Task on Archiving of Digital Information (Task on Archiving of
Digital Information 1996), which raised concerns about combating obsolescence, migration of
materials, the management of archives and a call for the development of digital preservation
techniques. The use of the term “digital curation” first emerged in 2001 at the “Digital Curation:
Digital Archives, Librarians, and e-Science Seminar” (Beagrie & Pothen, 2001).
The term “digital curation” represents an inquiry originally begun as a series of
interdisciplinary efforts to address data problems, most notably the preservation of scientific data
for future use (Hey & Trefethen 2003; Messerschmidt 2003; National Science Foundation 2003).
However, the digital curation terminology was also used to identify needs for data strategies in
social science (American Council on Learned Societies 2006), the storage of digital data
(National Science Foundation 2007), and the need for policies encouraging cooperation across
areas of expertise for the storage and management of digital data (Lyon 2007).
Within the LIS community, three interlocking terms (curation, archiving, and preservation)
describe related but discrete concerns in managing data. In contrast to archiving and preservation,
curation is defined as

“[t]he activity of, managing and promoting the use of data from its point of creation, to
ensure it is fit for contemporary purpose, and available for discovery and re-use. For
dynamic datasets this may mean continuous enrichment or updating to keep it fit for
purpose. Higher levels of curation will also involve maintaining links with annotation
and with other published materials (Lord and Macdonald 2003, 12).

Yakel (2007) identified five core concepts and activity areas for digital curation, archiving
and preservation, including:

1. Life cycle/continuum management of the materials perhaps even reaching back

to the creation of the record keeping system.

2. Active involvement over time of both the records creators and potentially
digital curators.

3. Appraisal and selection of materials.

4. Development and provision of access.

5. Ensuring preservation (usability and accessibility) of the objects (338).

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Though several minor variations exist among the individual uses of the digital curation
terminology in LIS literature, there appears to be consistent agreement that the term denotes
activities intended to preserving data in order to provide access to information for future
generations (Moore 2008; Abrams et.al. 2009).
This meaning, however, does not appear be consistent with the usage in the field of
journalism, nor are the activities represented by the two uses of the term consistent.

Digital Curation in the Journalism Industry

The journalism industry’s usage of the term “digital curation” appears to be a much more recent
phenomenon. Google search terminology analysis reveals that until October 2006, no significant
search patterns for “digital curation” exist, but that by November 2006 the term was increasingly
popular and peaked in popularity in December 2006. Considering the LIS discussions about
“digital curation” date back to at least 1996, the journalism industry appears to have begun using
the term more than a decade after the scholarly use began to emerge.
Scant literature exists within journalism scholarship (and most of that which does refers back
to the LIS literature). That dearth might help explain why in popular communication, the
practitioners of journalism have adopted a significantly different framing of the term and its
issues. Within the context of the journalism industry, digital curation is defined as “the process of
finding relevant, high quality content that you know will be enjoyed or beneficial to your social
feed, and then posting it for their benefit. This content could be blog posts from around the web,
industry news, editorials, videos, tutorials, apps and software and anything else that you feel
would be positively received” (Smarty 2013).
This use of the “digital curation” terminology represents a significant departure from the
academic use of the term. Within the journalism industry, the term does not appear to involve
concerns of preservation at all. In fact, many of the uses appear to reflect a reframing of the
traditional functions of journalism: “Think about it. Substitute the word Editing for Curating. It’s
pretty much the same thing: Wisely selecting and highlighting the best information available on
topics of importance to the community” (McLellan 2011).
According to definition like the above, the function of curation for journalists is one of
filtering or assembling collections of related content resources to provide a more comprehensive
picture of a content topic than the traditional single-writer model of journalistic writing.
Other uses make it clear that the incorporation of external sources of media content is the
purpose of the curation in question, though once again the purpose appears to leverage
professional editorial judgment on the content from an external community:

Curation’s genesis was to create a word for a practice that was emerging over the past
two years to filter the overabundance of signal, and create quality, thoughtful, human-
organized collections. The most urgent need for curation was in Web content, where
algorithmic search was falling farther and farther behind the firehose of data that was
spewing out of digital devices, video-enabled mobile phones, auto-tweeting devices, and
overzealous Facebook friends. Curators created entirely new editorial works by finding,
filtering, and contextualizing—finding meaning in the cloud (Rosenbaum 2013).

Such definitions and uses appear to match the professional practice emerging within the
industry. For example, the use of the terminology of reports within large media organizations
appears to reflect this understood definition, “The Seattle Times has reorganized its newsroom to
a digital-first structure with three personnel roles: creation, curation and community. Reporters
and editors create content, production staff curates it into different products and platforms, and
engagement staff builds community around it (Sonderman 2011).”

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In the above use, “curation” indicates the deployment of professionally content into
multimedia platforms for delivery to news consumers, a function akin to publication layout or
video editing (albeit with the implication that several formats and modes are likely).
Even when the term indicates the incorporation of user-generated content, the use implies an
incorporation or collection for immediate use: “Digital First Media announced yesterday (19
July) that it was creating a new curation team within the media group's central news operation,
tasked with hunting out content from across the web that may be of interest to the audience of the
titles it owns” (McAthy 2012).
In the above use, the term indicates a filtering mechanism by which media outlets draw
attention to external content judged as significant or of a certain quality or relevance to the
organization’s own editorial process. This definition appears to be a fairly common usage:

Her mission will be to provide our audience with links to breaking and comprehensive
news and information relevant to their community and interests. Putting the reader first,
she’ll link out to blogs, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos and even the work of our
longest-standing “traditional” competitors, not just to content produced by our staff
writers at The Register Citizen, or by sister Journal Register Company publications in
Connecticut (DeRienzo 2011).

Though variations in the kinds of activities curation implies exist, the common usage
appears to invoke the exemplar of a museum curator, but only in the sense that a curator places
artifacts and objects on display. Journalism educator and scholar Mindy McAdams described the
term in order to “list some aspects of journalistic curation that fit well … with the museum
version of curating,” she included on her list the “[s]election of the best representatives,”
“culling,” a suggestion to “provide context,” paying attention to the “arrangement of individual
objects,” as well as to the “organization of the whole,” to providing “expertise,” and to a
commitment to “updating” (McAdams 2008). In McAdams’ use, the display function of curation
is well-represented. What does not appear to be incorporated in her definition are the functions of
repair, maintenance and preservation activities curators commonly engage in with items not on
public display.
Another key difference in the way journalists define and discuss curation involves the
purposes of the curation and the role of the original content creators:

Curation Journalism is about making new meaning by combining existing content in a

deliberate way. By applying a perspective, journalists weave together existing context
to create a new narrative. Adding additional media is not curation. Supplying links to
information is not curation. The selection, filtering, editing, and organizing is what
Curation Journalists do. This building of context helps to make new, collective meaning
from the world and share it as a digestible package with readers (Linder 2011).

In the above example, the intent of the curation is clear: journalists draw upon the content of
non-journalists in order to facilitate a narrative of the journalist’s choosing. What narrative the
original content producer may have intended does not appear to be a large factor in the
consideration of how his or her content is to be used. Nor does the original content creator appear
to have much voice in how his or her work is incorporated. When the term is used by industry
agents or analysts, the implied relationship between external creators and professional
journalistic curators becomes explicit:

Curators are both collectors and creators. Capturing the zeitgeist of the web, and
knitting together images, text, links, and video along with their own original content to
create a focused, contextually relevant editorial for an overloaded world. For a journalist
the decision is simple. Embrace your new role as a curator and be part of solving digital

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overload, or continue to create stand-alone acts of original journalism and have your
voice increasingly drowned out by the rising tide of unfiltered information (Rosenbaum
2012).

In this example, the content of non-journalists is source material to be collected and used
alongside the work of professionals in an effort to position the professional work as more worthy
to be consumed. Media critic Jeff Jarvis also reinforces this relationship in his explanation of the
relationship between professional and community through the curation process:

I was interested in seeing a conflict arise at the end of the day — one of the few,
actually — on the relative value of content creators vs. editors. No one in the room
would say that both aren’t valued and needed. But when push comes to shove with spare
resources, there is a difference of opinion on what added value really means. Some put
maximum resource into creating content: reporting. Some insist on the need for editors
to create order, to correct and vet, to curate, as we say these days. The disagreement is
only one of degree (Jarvis 2008).

In this usage, non-professional media artifacts become “value-added” features of

professional media content. In his blog post, Jarvis was illustrating the debate about the varying
attitudes towards whether non-professional content should be added alongside professional
content. But one point is clear: the “value” being added is to the professional product, not
necessarily to the community itself nor to the original content creators.
In cases where the “value added” is considered as a service to the community, the associated
activities include providing summaries, organizing content, adding professional reporting and
providing professional context (Buttry 2012).
Within the domains of the journalism industry, the general definition of “curation” appears
to most frequently mean “editing” or “filtering,” implying a sense of selectivity for immediate
display:

Curation is quickly becoming a core skill for news professionals. It involves recognizing
that news and journalism are, and always have been, a collaborative process between
reporters, sources, and communities.

By finding sources, choosing quotes, and framing context, journalists have always been
engaging in a curatorial process. However, the result of that curation was packaged into
a narrative story format—mainly because of the constraints of print and broadcast
media.

Digital curation starts with learning the value of retweeting selectively, participating in
Flickr photo pools, creating YouTube playlists, using Facebook for engagement and
more. Tools like Storify allow you to pull together a narrative that spans multiple
services and platforms. It’s an especially valuable tool for telling a story in progress.
The product is a work that is itself linkable and embeddable—which means, your story
is easy to share. (Gahran 2012).

Even when industry voices argue for reductive principles of curation, such lists appear to
focus on the immediacy of news media consumption, For example, when Rangaswami (2010)
provided a set of reductive principles of curation (authenticity, veracity, access, relevance,
consume-ability, and produce-ability) , these principles reflect traditional normative journalistic
values. “Access” in this context refers to the agenda-setting function of media, not the
preservation and facilitation of access with which LIS scholars appear more concerned. The
appearance of “relevance” on the list communicates news-judgment, such concerns are not

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generally the concern of those preserving content for future uses in which the relevance cannot
generally be predicted.

Definitional Contrasts and Concerns

When one compares the two definitions and uses of the term “digital curation,” several critical
differences emerge, differences that indicate alternative expectations concerning the period of
content consumption, differences that represent alternative assumptions about the political
economy of user-generated content, and even differences that speak to competing values
concerning content.
For academics concerned about preserving digital forms of culture, those activities revolve
around an attempt to communicate with future generations (Moore 2008, 64). The preservation
and curation of content is important because content has uses beyond the present moment. In an
LIS setting, content is intended to survive the context in which it is produced. This view is also
dominant in the discussions about “digital continuity,” the “ability to use your information in the
way that you need, for as long as you need” (The National Archives 2011).
The practice of journalism, by contrast, concerns itself with the more immediate context of
creating “history in a hurry” (Meyer 1979, 14). News media generally focus on informing the
public of events in the immediate moment, not creating the definitive record for future
generations. This core difference in mission creates one of a few critical contradictions in the use
of the “curation” terminology.
In LIS scholarly literature, the very purpose of curation hinges on preservation and the
provision of access. As Abrams et. al. (2009) explained, “While preservation and access were
previously considered disparate functions, they are now properly seen as complementary:
preservation aimed at providing access over time, while access depends upon preservation at a
point in time” [emphasis in original].
Another way to describe this key difference is to consider the consumption/distribution of
content through the model of the “Long Tail.” The Long Tail was popularized by Wired
Magazine editor Chris Anderson in 2006 as the recognition that analog culture depended upon
rapid diffusion and consumption because of the effects on profitability that long-term storage
(rent) posed (Anderson, 2006). Because firms like Amazon and Netflix use their websites to
minimize the rent/storage problem, Anderson pointed to the presence of a “long tail” of
consumption that transcended the traditional mass culture “short tail.”
Despite recent innovations and entries into new media spaces, news media still largely
operate in the “short tail” mentality of content production. Meyer’s “history in a hurry” quip still
accurately describes the mission of a news outlet: to present the latest updates in news and
information. This mission stands in strong contrast to the idea of preservation, which seeks to
form more permanent cultural exchanges, even at the expense of the “short” attention cycle.
In the journalism industry’s domain, the goal of “curation” is to collect recent materials for
immediate consumption, not produce a definitive record for future use. This distinction poses
dramatic differences in the methods by which user-generated content is collected, stored, and
disseminated. In the LIS world, care and concern is given to ensuring that collection, storage and
dissemination take into consideration issues like technological obsolescence, the changing
expectations of content users or even new understandings of the relevance of content. In the
journalism domain, these considerations are trumped by the mission to communicate to a known
audience immediately by using the technology of the present to gather, store and disseminate
content. Whether that content remains available 5, 10 or 20 years later does not generally appear
to be the concern of a journalistic curator. (In fact, one would argue the popularity of the pay-
wall subscription model employed by media outlets like The New York Times represents the
antithesis of the preservation and curation goals in the LIS community).

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Perhaps an even greater significant difference concerns the competing assumptions

concerning the political economy of user-generated content. When a scholar seeks to curate
content like the blogs, videos, and other digital forms created by non-professional users, the
underlying intent is to preserve the voice, format and appearance of the original producer. In fact,
towards that end, consulting with the original producer of the content is a valued strategy of the
preservation and curation process (Moore 2008; Abrams et.al. 2009).
By contrast, journalistic curation mostly seems to occur when content can be found that
serves the editorial mission of the professional journalist. Towards that end, such content is often
translated through the use of software tools into a form that serves the purposes of the
professional media outlet. Not only are original non-professional content creators not consulted
about the uses of their media artifacts, but those artifacts are often embedded into new formats
(such as when journalists use curation software tools like Storify), formats that often do not
preserve the original format of the source expression.
The implied difference in political economy is stark: the academic pursuit of digital curation
intends to preserve the expression of the author in a more permanent form for the purpose of
providing access to future generations. The political economy of the original producer is
paramount: the preservation of voice, format and appearance in their original contexts are the
goal. But for journalists, the mission is more akin to appropriation of voice, format and format:
the compatibility with media outlet’s platform, the “relevance” to the featured professional
content, and the adherence to industry norms often override the original context, format and even
voice in which the aggregated content original appeared.
Together, these differences in core mission lead to fundamentally different approaches to
and valuations of content. In its older context, “curation” is focused on preserving and presenting
content in its original context for future users: the content has inherent cultural value, consistent
with the traditional view of cultural artifacts as communications between generations. In the
journalism context, “curation” is focused on manipulating the attention economy of the moment
in order to “add value” (from the media outlet’s perspective) to the consumers’ experiences.
Content in this context is treated as a consumable commodity, and derives value from the short-
term demand for a more efficient model of consumption. Whereas the older model stresses the
primacy of author intent, the latter stresses the primacy of appropriation, combining non-
professional digital artifacts into sellable packages. In the older conception, content has value of
its own, in the journalism industry’s conception, the values and judgments of professional editors
(attempt to) determine the value of content.

Conclusion
In addition to the core considerations about the role and value of digital culture to society, there
are several additional areas of concern related to the contradictions in the competing definitions
of “digital curation.”
Words invoke implied attributes and ideals among those who use them. For the scholars and
administrators struggling to derive ways of preserving and providing future access, efforts to
raise awareness about the potential pitfalls, expense and risks involved in their work could be
complicated by the cooption of their terminology. Particularly because the journalism industry
operates closer to the consumer’s popular awareness, their appropriation of the “digital curation”
terminology stands to cause damage in the popular understanding of it most important issues.
This damage can be wrought in the form of a misunderstanding of the issues involved, but it also
poses concerning risks to funding efforts. (One can imagine confusion when a grant proposal
seeking the funding of new curation techniques or standards creates competing impressions in the
minds of the deciding individuals).
Finally, the subtle conflict over the value and role that content plays in society can influence
related issues like concerns about copyright, fair use, and even the protections of free expression.

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At least part of the purpose of using precise terminology is to effectively communicate

specific concepts. By utilizing as a buzzword a previously defined terminology, the journalism
industry and its commentators may have devalued the utility of precise terminology and run the
risk of undermining the very goals of those who struggled to originally develop effective
expressions of important and complex issues.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. J. Richard Stevens: Assistant professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at the
University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Stevens’ research delves into the intersection of ideological
formation and media message dissemination. This work comprises studies such as how cultural
messages are formed and passed through popular media, how technology infrastructure affects
the delivery of media messages, communication technology policy, and related studies in how
media and technology platforms are changing American public discourse.

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