HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Cont. German Studies:politics, Soc.&Cult

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Tobias Ebbrecht Hartmann

Coordinator Email: Tobias.Ebbrecht-Hartmann@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Mondays, 10:00-12:00

Teaching Staff:
Prof Tobias Ebbrecht Hartmann

Course/Module description:
Representations of the past in social media pose great challenges to public history, but also offer opportunities when it comes to presenting history to a broader public. Social media networks have quickly become new ecologies of narrating history, providing a space for sharing information about the past and adapting analogue forms of commemoration to new media environments. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to better understand social media communication about history. How does historical storytelling on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube or TikTok look like? How far do these formats blur historical facts and fiction? What is the participatory potential of social media history? In what ways do historical projects on social media reach new audiences and engage the public?

Course/Module aims:
Public history provides a sufficient methodology and critical concepts to study social media communication about the past. For that purpose, the course introduces a public history framework that will enable the students to evaluate and critically analyze digital projects about multiple histories in particular on visual and audiovisual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. The course focuses on the following criteria for analyzing public history in social media: narratives, imagination, participation, multiperspectivity, contextualization, controversy, and personalization. Students will actively engage with a variety of projects, analyze and evaluate them with the aim to critically explore what specific images of history those projects communicate to the public and for what purpose, and in which political and social context they are embedded.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
The course will enable students:

* to explore a variety of social media formats in historical perspective that offer new and engaging ways of accessing history

* to evaluate and critically analyze digital projects about multiple histories in particular on visual and audiovisual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

* to actively engage with a variety of projects, analyze and evaluate them with the aim to critically explore what images of history those projects communicate to the public and in which political and social context they are embedded

* to practically explore the potential of Instagram and TikTok formats for public history, and experiment with related presentation techniques

Attendance requirements(%):
80%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: The course is designed as a joint German-Israeli online course. Its focus is on the digital communication of history on social media. We will have interactive, synchronous online sessions that introduce relevant theory, methods and concepts, an explore and discuss specific platforms and social media project. Students will research and present projects in two classes in January 2024. Besides online meetings, the course includes also video lectures. In addition, an in-person workshop will take place in Israel at the end of February 2024 that deals specifically with the production of exemplary social media content.

Course/Module Content:
17.10.2023 Online Session: Introduction

24.10.2023 Online Session: Principles of Public History

14.11.2023 Online Session:Criteria for “Hi|story-telling on Social Media”+ Talk with Iris Groschek (Concentration Camp Memorial Site Neuengamme)

5.12.2023 Online Session: Talk “History on Tiktok” with guest: Leonie Schöler (History TikTok creator from Germany).

19.12.2023
Online Session: Talk “History-Telling on Instagram” with guest: Maya Kochavi (Creater of “Eva Stories” and “Equiano Stories” from Israel, tbc).

10.1.2024 Online Session: Presentation of different social media accounts by the student-groups (I)

17.1.2024
Online Session: Presentation of different social media accounts by the student-groups (II)

26.-28.2.2024
Joint Workshop: Experiencing memorial sites in Israel and producing social media reports about the visit

Required Reading:
Bunnenberg, C./ Logge, T./ Steffen, N (2021)„SocialMediaHistory.“ In: Historische
Anthropologie 29, 2, pp. 267–283.

Ebbrecht-Hartmann, T. and Henig, L. (2021) “i-Memory: Selfies and Self-Witnessing in #Uploading_Holocaust (2016).” In: Digital Holocaust Memory: Education and Research. Ed. Victoria Walden. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 213-235.

Henig, L. and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, T. (2022) “Witnessing Eva Stories: Media witnessing and self-inscription in social media memory.” New Media & Society. 24:1, 202-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820963805.

Additional Reading Material:
A full reading list will be presented at the beginning of the seminar.

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Home Exam / Referat 60 %
Presentation / Poster Presentation / Lecture/ Seminar / Pro-seminar / Research proposal 20 %
Active Participation / Team Assignment 20 %

Additional information: