Public history beyond specialist audiences

Unfamiliar public venues can reach audiences and prompt ideas that established academic circles miss. Television, conventions, and online video offer broader public exposure than journal articles that may spend years in review. Naval history is a small enough academic field that specialists often already communicate directly through email and conferences. That argument is specific to this small community, and other academic fields may still need journals to connect their researchers. Public distribution serves the additional purpose of reaching people who are outside those specialist networks.