Attend Online Conference on #History on Social Media: Sources, Methods and Ethics

The Universities of Bochum and Hamburg are hosting an online conference on “#History on Social Media: Sources, Methods, Ethics,” November 11-12, 2022.

Social media are an ambivalent object of research: on the one hand, history is always medially conveyed and shaped – social media are no exception. Historical scholarship thus seems to be prepared for the reflection of medial traditions, framework conditions, specifics and their influences on history(s). On the other hand, the historical toolkit must be methodically expanded in order to deal with the emerging data.

The conference will therefore focus on social media in historical research, with particular attention to theories, methods, sources and ethics:

• What impact do social media have on historical scholarship? (Practices, knowledge transfer, sources, methods)
• What knowledge potential does the study of particular media offer?
• What impact do users of social media have in the creation of historical narratives (co-creation of knowledge)?
• How and by whom can social media be sustainably preserved – and how can research data be made accessible?
• How can history be analyzed in different social media? Which content-related, formal, aesthetic and technical aspects play a role and need to be taken into account?
• Which methodological approaches are suitable for researching social media from a historical perspective? What role does interdisciplinarity play?
• Which and whose interests must be taken into account in the research? (private individuals, corporations, politics)
• What skills are necessary for social media research?
• How do economic, technical, and medial framework conditions of the platforms influence historical representations and also research?
• Which media milieus and specifics can be identified?
• How is history received in social media? How can the impact and outreach of digital formats be evaluated?

Learn more.