HIS1017H: History and Social Media: Critical Histories for Big Publics

This seminar responds to the disinformation crisis of the past decade by focusing on the relationship between social media and history in two ways. First, it offers a thematic survey of the much longer histories behind social media platforms, including global histories of computing, mechanization, capitalism, race, gender, and power. Second, it explores how historians could use these newer technologies to generate better public access to quality historical scholarship. So doing, this course seeks to provide future historians with a deeper understanding of how these "modern" platforms are defined by global historical legacies and biases that require our urgent attention. Readings, research, and seminar discussions help students examine these legacies at work within social media platforms themselves, revealing how they are "haunted" by ingrained biases, rooted in longer histories of racism, colonialism, misogyny/ transphobia, and capitalism. Beyond critique, this seminar focuses on whether social media platforms can function as potential tools for historians. Could a stronger understanding of the technologies and histories behind social media help historians protect public digital access to quality history and data that can make a difference? Assignments and workshops blend traditional formats like book reviews and project proposals with newer digital formats, including the production of TikTok and YouTube videos on archival sources that put our readings into action and attempt to make accurate historical information "go viral."

0.50
St. George