(Public) Social Media & (Public) History

As a social media consultant for a variety of not-for-profit organizations I spend a great deal of my time talking about Twitter.  In fact, I've blogged about Twitter twice. The first article I posted discusses how historians can best use twitter.  The second outlines Tweetchats for historians.  If you read those articles it should become readily apparent that Twitter can be a very important and very useful tool for historians, particularly public historians.

I recently stumbled across this fascinating article by Jessica Clark of the Center for Social Media about public media for the public historian. Clark not only discusses how social media tools, like Twitter, "can be used to spur conversation and storytelling about historical moments," she also points out what she calls the "fragility" of social media.  In other words, a lot of the digital data we have isn't being archived by the people who technically own it which means its being lost. 

Apparently Twitter, in particular, had weak archiving practices but has recently announced it will be "donating its public archives to the Library of Congress."  This is a huge win for public historians who may want to research social media.  But what about Facebook or Myspace or Pinterest?  Who owns those sites and how can we get access to the information stored there?  I simply don't know how to answer that question, and this will definitely be a problem for future historians.

For now, though, I will continue utilizing Twitter for the amazing networking tool it is.  I think Twitter's largest and most far reaching impact on public history is its ability to connect such a diverse range of history professionals from across the globe to one another and to history organizations all over the world. 

If you decide you want to join the twitterverse, don't forget to follow me @JennWelborn. I look forward to tweeting with you soon!