Photographs are a small act of sentimental preservation. Photo albums, scrapbooks, and videos are sites of revisitation and display, and as such contribute to the legacy of the museum as a cultural archive. As an institution, the museum has always been a conservative stronghold—a constant from its privatized roots to its marked transition to a public locale. A portrait of preservation, its artefacts are protected by extensive security measures and object handling rules that safeguard these relics of history. But the rules of safeguarding have changed, and the evolution of archiving means connecting with history in an advanced technological era. So what does this mean for our relationship with the past?
In 2023, Press Gazette recorded a loss of 8,000 journalism jobs across the UK and North America, spotlighting the growing graveyard of media careers. Between 2016 and 2022, a string of articles started appearing on news platforms across Nigeria, questioning the shrinking presence of newspaper vendors in the country. Surmised more recently in a Reuters Institute study, the answer lies in the high cost, low reward rationale of traditional print media. Publications are incentivized to digitally circulate their content due to a growing online audience. The bundling of news publications through subscription-based services means getting more money for your buck.