15 December 2022
DIGITAL EXHIBITION SERIESHate Speech, Antisemitism, and History in Social Networks
Photo: SocialMediaHistory
The way history is presented in social media can contribute to social cohesion, for example by highlighting the importance of minorities in history, or looking at the shared history of divided communities. While it can build social cohesion, it can also destroy it, by providing false representations of history, denying genocide, or creating antagonistic stereotypes. The publicly available digital exhibition series within the SocialMediaHistory—History on Instagram and TikTok presented by Universität Hamburg and Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) explores both of these aspects.
The event will take place on Zoom, you do not need to register. There will also be YouTube livestreams, but you will not be able to ask questions on that platform.
A look at the program:
The program starts at 6 pm on 12 January 2023 with the Bildungsstätte Anne Frank and TikTok expert Danielle Jerry with a presentation discussing antisemitism on TikTok. Danielle Jerry will report on the particular characteristics of the video platform in comparison with other social media channels and on the forms of antisemitism that are spreading like wildfire among school students as well as the general population. As part of a campaign in conjunction with the Bildungsstätte Anne Frank, they will also explore the possibilities and limitations of education efforts in this field.
On 7 February, from 6.30 pm, Mirko Drotschmann and Joachi Telgenbüscher will answer questions from the audience on the different ways of communicating history. Anyone who is interested in history may have already come across these two: Mirko Drotschmann is known for his YouTube channel MrWissen2Go, and has since become a moderator on Terra X, the program on ZDF. Joachim Telgenbüscher operates the Twitter and Instagram channel Verrückte Geschichte and is also the head of production for Geo Epoche and P.M. History.
On the 22 May from 6 pm, deals with history denial and attacks on museums. A panel will discuss the experience that many museums and memorials have had with hate speech will be discussed with Iris Groschek from the Neuengamme Gedenkstätte, a holocaust memorial, Danielle Jerry from the Bildungsstätte Anne Frank, Pia Preuss from the Hessenpark Open Air Museum, Ralf Raths from the Panzermuseum Munster and Melanie Wunsch from the Neanderthal Museum Mettmann. Their experiences have shown how powerful hate speech can be, leading to phenomena like denying historical events and research findings.
Additional events are planned
In addition to the 3 evenings already planned, the SocialMediaHistory team is planning additional digital events for 2023 to present the history of various periods, also particularly aimed at teachers.
All the information on the individual courses and on registration is on the project website, as well as on their Intagram and Twitter accounts.
About the Project
SocialMediaHistory—History on Instagram and TikTok is a joint project of Public History at Universität Hamburg and Geschichtsdidaktik (history teaching) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in cooperation with Kulturpixel e. V. The project is being funded by the public research section of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.