Experts Answer to Oral History Questions

100 Questions/ 55

Are cyberspace micro-narratives defined under oral history?

Machine Translation Edited by Mandana Karimi

2026-11-9

We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week. The goal of this project is to open new doors to an issue and promote scientific discussions in the field of oral history.

In this project, a question is asked every Saturday, and we ask experts to present their views in the form of a short text (about 100 words) by the end of the week. All answers will be published together so that the audience can compare and analyze the views. The content is the opinions of the senders and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Oral History website. Although the answers are supposed to be about 100 words, in order to be polite and not to leave the discussion incomplete, in some cases, more than this number of answers are also accepted.

This time, we asked the experts to send their answers by Sunday night so that all the answers can be published on Tuesday.

From the intertwining of these answers, using artificial intelligence, we have arrived at theories about oral history that will be published in the near future.

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Question 55

Are cyberspace micro-narratives defined under oral history?

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Experts’ Answers

Gholamreza Azari Khakestar
With the expansion of cyberspace, oral history narratives are becoming more accessible to audiences. Today, social media and digital platforms have become a space for storytelling, retelling memories, and sharing personal experiences. These short narratives, which can be referred to as “micro-narratives,” have the potential to be considered part of oral history. However, simply publishing a memory or narrative in cyberspace does not mean its historical validity. These narratives can only be included in the framework of oral history when their validity and accuracy are confirmed through examining sources, corroborating evidence, and careful verification.

Gholamreza Azizi

Not every micro-narrative in cyberspace can be considered an oral history interview, because many of them are artificial visual productions of bloggers, and some, despite their conversational form, fall into the category of memoir. On the other hand, if the micro-narrative has characteristics such as brevity, coherence, independence, completeness, and belonging to a larger narrative, and oral history is formed in the form of a purposeful, semi-structured, deep, and active conversation about past events, short videos clipped from oral history conversation sessions and published on social networks can be defined under this area, because micro-narratives are part of larger narratives in the form of myth, legend, cinema, news, and conversation.

Hassan Beheshtipour

Cyberspace micro-narratives are not oral history, but they can be a valuable source. Oral history is a purposeful process of producing and interpreting a source through conversation. So a post that a spontaneous individual publishes is close to memoir, and publishing on social media does not change its nature. The criterion is how the narrative is produced and its research purpose, not the brevity of the narrative or the platform of its publication. Narratives are valuable for studying lived experience and memory, but they need evidence to prove the event. If the researcher bases them on a purposeful interview or if they are produced from scratch within the framework of a research project, they can enter oral history.

Abolfat’h Mo’men

Oral history data is verified to be reliable; therefore, the narrative and the material that falls under oral history must be verifiable and accurate, and the narrator and its source must have the necessary credibility. Cyberspace micro-narratives, because they have not gone through the oral history interview process and their authenticity is questionable, cannot be classified as oral history; but they can be presented as clues and a topic for investigation. They are also useful guides in discovering the truth. However, attention should be paid to the source, speaker, and goals of the narrative so as not to cause confusion and deliberate deviation; because these narratives are often incomplete and ambiguous.

Mohammad Mehdi Abdollahzade

The answer to this question depends on the nature of the material and the extent to which it conforms to oral history standards. Micro-narratives encompass a wide range of personal and everyday content that users publish on social media and other digital platforms. The format of publishing these micro-narratives is of secondary importance compared to compliance with standards and can sometimes create added value. In this research approach, the principle is that the content is produced through interviews, based on lived experiences and in compliance with ethical principles. Of course, narratives that have not complied with some principles can also be the subject of study and analysis.

Hamid Ghazvini

Oral micro-narratives that are published in the media on various historical topics with political, cultural, and social approaches sometimes contain historical data and may also have cultural and propaganda value, but they are not oral history. Oral history is the product of a purposeful conversation between two people, the interviewer and the interviewee, within the framework of a specific topic with clear questions. It is not an example of oral history when people, with unclear or unrelated goals, express even important information and publish them without scientific and professional verification or cross-checking, even if the volume and number of these narratives are large.

Seyyed Mohammad Sadegh Feyz

No. Anything that has the aspect of memory and narrative, and monologues in general, should not be listed under oral history, or better yet, interviews or oral history memories. Because any simple narrative and micro-narratives of cyberspace that lack narrative aspects or a coherent structure, framework, and logical order of events, and do not focus on the main character, not only do not fall under oral history, but the term “narrative” for them is also questionable. These individual and single narratives should be interpreted under incomplete narratives or pre-memories, and in order to enter the text, they must go through the stages of verification, completion, and correction.

Abolfazl Hassanabadi

With the increasing influence of cyberspace and the presence of people, the use of its capacities in archives and oral history centers has become more prominent in recent years. Some archives, such as the Australian Archives, have made it possible to send people's memories about topics. Cyberspace has made it possible to record narratives that were less accessible to historians through conventional methods. However, not every memory or experience published on social media can be considered oral history. To examine these narratives, a connection must be made between the type of memory, the context of production, and the purpose of its expression, so that it is possible to assess the authenticity, accuracy, context, and connection of the narrative to historical evidence.

Jaafar Golshan

Although the question is general and does not have sufficient accuracy in details, it can be generally said that any narrative that is the result of an active and historical conversation, based on a two-way interview (interviewee and interviewer), is included in the category of oral history narratives. Of course, micro-narratives, which are often short and concise, have some considerations. Among them is that they are usually taken from a large and cut content; that is, due to the limitation of the loading volume, a part of a wide content is selected and presented. Naturally, such narratives face a disruption in the deep understanding of the subject and the audience will have a quick and fleeting impression. As a result, they remain unaware of the what, why, and how of the subject and suffer from a deficiency in the correct understanding of the event.

Artificial Intelligence

Cyberspace micro-narratives are not inherently defined as oral history, but they can be a source or an emerging form of it. Oral history relies on systematic interviewing, audio and text recording, and methodical verification; whereas virtual narratives are often spontaneous, fragmented, lacking context, and subject to distortion. However, when these narratives are collected, validated, and archived using oral history methods, they contribute to collective memory and social history. Therefore, they are best considered as “raw data” or “precursors” to digital oral history, rather than its full-fledged embodiment; the dividing line is the systematicity of the method and validation. (DeepSeek)

Cyberspace micro-narratives can be defined in the following ways as oral history, but the two concepts are not entirely synonymous. Oral history emphasizes the recording and analysis of individuals’ memories, experiences, and accounts of past events, usually through conversation and interviews. Cyberspace micro-narratives, in contrast, may be formed spontaneously and sporadically in the form of posts, comments, images, videos, and personal narratives. When these narratives reflect the lived experience of individuals, are capable of historical documentation and analysis, and are examined with respect to the credibility, context, and memory of the narrators, they can be considered part of oral history sources. (ChatGPT)

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