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Project: Social Media History


Duration: 2021-2024

History takes place - also and especially in social media! Public History Hamburg, the history education at the Ruhr University Bochum and Kulturpixel e. V. are exploring together with citizens how history is told on Instagram and TikTok. The project explores forms of visual and participatory historiography on the internet. Together, they will develop analytical tools and test their own practices of representation. The aim is to enable and promote multi-perspective and fact-based historical narratives and a critical and reflexive participation in historical discourses in social media.

Research project in cooperation with the Public History Department at the University Hamburg

Project website: www.socialmediahistory.de
See here for the latest information on events and publications.

Instagram Channel: @socmedhistory

Project partners #SocialMediaHistory

Ruhr-Universität Bochum 

Universität Hamburg 

Kulturpixel e.V.

Funded by: BMBF


Book Publication

In August 2023, the anthology @ichbinsophiescholl. Darstellung und Diskussion von Geschichte in Social Media was published by the Wallstein Verlag. The title is edited by Mia Berg and Christian Kuchler and is part of the series Historical Education and Public History, vol. 1.

You can find the book here.

Conference

On 11 and 12 November 2022, the international conference "#History on Social Media - Sources, Methods, Ethics" took place as part of the joint project #SocialMediaHistory.  Further information and the conference recordings can be found here.

#SocialMediaHistory in Podcasts

Social media such as Instagram or TikTok have become popular platforms for presenting history in multimedia forms. As part of the #SocialMediaHistory project, Prof. Dr. Christian Bunnenberg and his team are investigating the extent to which historical representations on such platforms are preceived by users, to what extent they are distorted or which topics are not even addressed. A detailed interview on this topic between Prof. Dr. Christian Bunnenberg and detektor.fm editor Julia Seegers can now be heard here in the podcast.

In the 12th episode of Spread the Word, the science communication podcast at the University of Hamburg, which was released on 25 May 2023, Mia Berg and Kristin Oswald (Hamburg) talked about the project, the participation of citizens and the challenges of researching the audiovisual platform Instagram and TikTok. You can listen to the podcast here

#SocialMediaHistory in the press

Publications

  • Berg, Mia/Kuchler, Christian (Ed.): @ichbinsophiescholl. Dartsellung und Diskussion von Geschichte in Social Media. Göttingen 2023.
  • Bunnenberg, Christian: SocialMediaHistory. Geschichtemachen in sozialen Medien, in: Historische Anthropologie. Kultur - Gesellschaft - Alltag, Thema: Soziale Medien, 2 (2021) 29, S. 267-283. (with Thorsten Logge, Nils Steffen)
Project Homepage