If one were to create an archive of public media about the unfolding crisis what would one include?
- newspaper and magazine clippings
- blogs entries and podcasts
- political literature, pamphlets, position papers, presidential campaigning
- television clips, special programs and transcripts of news reports
The purpose would be to file a record of public imagination on the crisis. To do it as it unfolded and so capture a different kind of register that would otherwise be perishable. What am I missing?
History of Economics Playground Redux 
Perhaps, microblogging and people commenting in social networks? They might provide an intersting view into how different professions or groups interpret the crisis.
PowerPoint slides, maybe, to get a better idea of kind of data was used to interprete what was actually going on. SlideShare might be good start.
Tiago, you won’t be surprised if I suggest this :
http://www.authentichistory.com/1930s/music/01.html
or that :
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Bread-Other-Films-Depression/dp/6305473188
Dear Juri, I had not thought of social networks but I was easily convinced, social networks are quickly supplanting blogs. To collect presentation materials even if one cannot collect the audio or video of the presentations seems useful as well.
Yann, I note people looking back to the great depression but is this content being resurrected? If it is it should be collected. How about new music and cinema? I wonder if material such as Aaron Tippin’s Drill Here, Drill Now should not be included?
http://aarontippin.musiccitynetworks.com/index.htm?inc=5&news_id=13986
I would suggest a separate ‘folder’ or whatever classifying tool for headlines (whether from online newspapers or homepages, yahoo and the like). This could be useful to trace the emergence and generalizations of specific notions, and the evolution of punchlines (was there orginally another word for subprimes, did the comparison with the Great Depression emerged at the very beginning, etc.).
And I thought that ads would be great, too:
– in the US, all those TV ads selling books on “How to buy the mortgaged house of your bankrupted neighbor”, or how to speculate in a depressed market.
– in Leiden, I saw in November a poster put in front of a shop for clothes with: “Crisis? Shit happens! 10% korting on all the store!”