Representation of Text History and Memory. Essay Example
History is the compilation of events and peoples perspective in events, all meshed up into a montage to create a definitive account of events. The Smithsonian website created by the American government shows a compelling selection of objects images and personal stories from the events of September 11 for the public to view at any time on the internet. Loose change is a documentary by Dylan Avery which has an opposing perspective to that of the terrorists attacking America. Both texts provide a recount of an event in history. Within history there is scope for challenging the disputable facts that we have been presented with. The Smithsonian website was designed to show the American perspective and what the Americans think happened on the day of September 11. The images and objects are considered to be the indisputable facts, whereas the personal stories are written by individual people that have memories of the events that took place on that day. These memories can be very biased depending on the individual self, religion or culture. This bias recount of an individual’s memory of the event is published and considered to be factual history. Memory can affect history and change the way it is perceived by other people which is distortion of the truth. An example of this is “when the public institution of the Australian War Memorial tries to outline its perspectives they incorporate political baggage”. This is because the government shows what it wants to the public, this is “the message they want to promote”. The documentary “Loose Change” by Dylan Avery has a complete opposite view of what the Smithsonian website wants to promote. They gather evidence from many different sources and put it together to show their own perspective of the event of September 11. Due to it being directed and made by an individual, it will contain some elements of bias because of the different views and beliefs that the director has. The evidence collected can contain indisputable and