Women in the Digital Streams of History. Women's Themes on Polish YouTube History Channels

The article analyses how women are represented in Polish YouTube channels dedicated to history, addressing the long-standing thesis about male dominance in historical narratives. Based on a corpus of 551 videos from five leading channels (Historia bez Cenzury, ThrashingMadPL, Historia w 5 minut, Oblicza XX wieku, and Ciekawe Historie), the study combines quantitative methods (descriptive statistics and correspondence analysis) with qualitative approaches rooted in Northrop Frye’s typology of narrative archetypes.

The results challenge the assumption that women are entirely marginalised in digital historiography. Although female figures are less often main protagonists, they frequently appear in political, cultural, and social contexts, and their representation tends to attract a higher number of views. The paper demonstrates how Web 2.0 has altered gender balance in historical storytelling and how algorithmic visibility co-creates the social memory of the past.

This article exemplifies Wiktor Werner’s integration of data-driven methodologies with humanistic reflection, showing how digital history can connect computational models with narrative and cultural interpretation.