https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0348-7139
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ABSTRACT
While Holocaust museums have embraced social media to connect with online audiences and provide educational materials, the specifics of their use are not well understood. A Delphi study involving 22 experts developed a framework for examining Holocaust-related social media content. This framework, the result of a three-round iterative process, includes three main areas: Historical content of the Holocaust, Contemporary issues related to the Holocaust, and Museum activities and communication. The hierarchical system of categories can help users explore the vast range of online materials and help educators identify effective strategies for using social media content in Holocaust education.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance under grant 2020-792. The study is also part of the author’s research project ‘Teaching and learning about the Holocaust with social media: A learning ecologies perspective.’ Sincere thanks are extended to the experts who participated in the study and gave their valuable time and insight. The study would not have been possible without their help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Pakier and Stråth, A European Memory?
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4 Sierp, “The European Union as a Memory Region.”
5 Assmann, “Transnational Memories,” Assmann, “Transnational Memory and the Construction of history through Mass Media” and Fracapane, “International Organisations in the Globalisation of Holocaust Education.”
6 De Cesari and Rigney, Transnational Memory.
7 Manca, “Digital Holocaust Memory on Social Media.”
8 Eckmann, Stevick, and Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Research in Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust.
9 Assmann, “Transnational Memory and the Construction of History through Mass Media.”
10 Hoskins, “The Restless Past.”
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19 Walden, Digital Holocaust Memory, Education and Research.
20 Ibid., 291.
21 Boswell and Rowland, Virtual Holocaust Memory.
22 Ebbrecht-Hartmann, “Commemorating from a Distance.”
23 Shandler, Holocaust Memory in the Digital Age.
24 Blancas et al., “Active Learning in Digital Heritage.”
25 Frosh, “The Mouse, the Screen and the Holocaust Witness.”
26 Birkner and Donk, “Collective Memory and Social Media” and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, “Commemorating from a Distance.”
27 Stephens, “Playing Pretend on Social Media.” The inclusion of Holocaust victims in the digital ecology of social media raises tensions associated with the dominant culture of Holocaust remembrance, including the balance between instances of historical integrity and of popular culture, collective memory and self-representation, and communication across generational divides. Moreover, addressing the sensitive and politicized nature of Holocaust remembrance in the public sphere presents a challenge. The varied understandings of, and interactions with, Holocaust remembrance among different stakeholders and generations further complicate this task.
28 Reading, “Digital Interactivity in Public Memory Institutions.”
29 Manca, Passarelli, and Rehm, “Exploring Tensions in Holocaust Museums’ Modes of Commemoration and Interaction on Social Media.”
30 Ebbrecht-Hartmann, “Commemorating from a Distance.”
31 Walden, “What is ‘Virtual Holocaust Memory’?”
32 Our definition of a ‘Holocaust museum’ is based on the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s definition, which encompasses ‘any of several educational institutions and research centres dedicated to preserving the experiences of people who were victimized by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust (1933–45)’ (Parrott-Sheffer, “Holocaust Museum”).
33 Erll, “Cultural Memory Studies.”
34 Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 7.
35 Walden, The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age.
36 Manca, Passarelli, and Rehm, “Exploring Tensions in Holocaust Museums’ Modes of Commemoration and Interaction on Social Media.”
37 Walden, The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age.
38 Arnaboldi and Diaz Lema, “The Participatory Turn in Museums.”
39 Hoskins, “The Restless Past,” Walden, “What is ‘Virtual Holocaust Memory’?” and Kansteiner “Transnational Holocaust Memory, Digital Culture and the End of Reception Studies.”
40 Manca, “Digital Memory in the Post-Witness Era,” Manca, “Digital Holocaust Memory on Social Media,” Manca, Passarelli, and Rehm, “Exploring Tensions in Holocaust Museums’ Modes of Commemoration and Interaction on Social Media” and Walden, The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age.
41 Manca, “Digital Memory in the Post-Witness Era,” Manca, “Digital Holocaust Memory on Social Media,” Manca, Passarelli, and Rehm, “Exploring Tensions in Holocaust Museums’ Modes of Commemoration and Interaction on Social Media” and Manca et al.
42 Oztig, “Holocaust Museums, Holocaust Memorial Culture, and Individuals.”
43 Manca, “Digital Memory in the Post-Witness Era” and Manca, Passarelli, and Rehm, “Exploring Tensions in Holocaust Museums’ Modes of Commemoration and Interaction on Social Media.”
44 Olzacka, “War and ‘Museum Front’ in a Digital Era.”
45 Dalziel, “Becoming the ‘Holocaust Police’” and Manikowska, “Museums and the Traps of Social Media.”
46 Manca and Passarelli, “Social Media as Lieux for the Convergence of Collective Trajectories of Holocaust Memory.”
47 Sloan and Quan-Haase, The Sage Handbook of Social Media Research Methods.
48 Kaplan and Haenlein, “Users of the World, Unite!”
49 Mukerjee and González-Bailón, “Social Media Data” and Prandner and Seymer, “Social Media Analysis.”
50 Krippendorff, Content analysis and Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook.
51 Huxley, “Content Analysis, Quantitative,” Lewins and Silver, Using Software in Qualitative Research and Schreier, “Content Analysis, Qualitative.”
52 Krippendorff, Content Analysis.
53 Łysak, “Vlogging Auschwitz,” Miller, “Codifying Gradients of Evil in Select YouTube Comment Postings” and Manca, “Digital Holocaust Memory on Social Media.”
54 Mukerjee and González-Bailón, “Social Media Data: Quantitative Analysis” and Prandner and Seymer, “Social Media Analysis.”
55 Yeh et al., “Development and Validation of TPACK-practical,” 711.
56 Adler and Giglio, Gazing into the Oracle, Hasson, Keeney, and McKenna, “Research Guidelines for the Delphi Survey Technique” and Keeney, Hasson, and McKenna, The Delphi Technique in Nursing and Health Research.
57 Rowe and Wright, “The Delphi Technique as a Forecasting Tool.”
58 Cape, “Gathering Opinion and Initiating Debate” and Shields et al., “Teaching the Holocaust in Nursing and Medical Education in Australia.”
59 Burke, “The Holocaust in Education.”
60 Shaikh and Khoja, “Personal Learning Environments and University Teacher Roles Explored Using Delphi.”
61 Linstone and Turoff, The Delphi Method.
62 Rowe and Wright, “The Delphi Technique as a Forecasting Tool,” cited in Snelson, Rice, and Wyzard, “Research Priorities for YouTube and Video-sharing Technologies.”
63 Linstone and Turoff, The Delphi Method.
64 For the full set of definitions and related examples, see Manca, A Framework for Analysing Content on Social Media Profiles of Holocaust Museums.
65 Knowles Cole, and A. Giordano, Geographies of the Holocaust, Knowles et al., “Integrative, Interdisciplinary Database Design for the Spatial Humanities” and Beorn et al., “Geographies of the Holocaust.”
66 Boum and Stein, The Holocaust and North Africa and Kissi, “Integrating sub-Saharan Africa into a Historical and Cultural Study of the Holocaust.”
67 Jakubowicz, “Stopped in Flight” and Sun, “The Holocaust and Hong Kong.”
68 Vincent, “The Voyage of the St. Louis Revisited.”
69 Knowles, Cole, and Giordano, Geographies of the Holocaust.
70 Desbois, The Holocaust by Bullets and Vice, “‘Beyond Words’.”
71 See, for example, https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/events-in-the-history-of-the-holocaust-1933-to-1939/
72 For a timeline of events, see https://echoesandreflections.org/timeline-of-the-holocaust/, https://www.yadvashem.org/education/what-is.html and https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/
74 Kühne and Rein, Agency and the Holocaust.
75 Morina and Thijs, Probing the Limits of Categorization.
76 Dack, “Crimes Committed by Soviet Soldiers against German Civilians,” Hedgepeth and Saidel, Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust and Mühlhäuser, “Understanding Sexual Violence during the Holocaust.”
77 Smeulers, “Eroding the Myth of Pure Evil.”
78 Steinhart, “The Chameleon of Trawniki.”
79 Staub, “The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers.”
80 Guttstadt et al., Bystanders, Rescuers or Perpetrators?
81 Rothberg, The Implicated Subject.
82 Davoliūtė, “The Gaze of the Implicated Subject.”
83 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry and Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders.
84 Levi, “The Gray Zone.”
85 ‘The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and murder of Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945,’ https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/educational-materials/summary-why-what-and-how-teach-about-holocaust
89 Bailer and Wetzel, Mass Murder of People with Disabilities and the Holocaust, Bársony, Pharrajimos and Evans, Forgotten Crimes, Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom, Friedman, The Other Victims and Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle.
90 Berkhoff, “The Mass Murder of Soviet Prisoners of War and the Holocaust.”
91 Green, “Passing on the Periphery.”
92 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry.
93 Stanton, The Ten Stages of Genocide.
94 Cowan and Maitles, Understanding and Teaching Holocaust Education.
95 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Stanton, The Ten Stages of Genocide.
100 Ibid.
101 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry.
102 Braham and Hanebrink, “The Holocaust in Hungary” and Rozett, “Information about the Holocaust in Hungary before the German Occupation.”
103 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry.
104 See for example Bachman, The United States and Genocide.
105 Popescu, “The ‘Defamiliarising’ Aspect of Art about the Holocaust.”
106 See for instance, Blatman, “Holocaust scholarship.”
107 Browning et al., Holocaust Scholarship.
108 Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Stiassny, and Henig, “Digital Visual History.”
109 Galai, “The Transnational Mythscape of the Second World War.”
110 Bachman, The United States and Genocide.
111 Hepworth, “From Survivor to Fourth-Generation Memory.”
112 Rosenfeld, The End of the Holocaust.
113 Bauer, “El Holocausto y las comparaciones con otros genocidios” and Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?
114 Bauer, “Genocide and Mass Atrocities.”
116 Cowan and Maitles, Understanding and Teaching Holocaust Education, Eckmann, Stevick, and Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Research in Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust, Gray, Contemporary Debates in Holocaust Education, Walden, The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age and Oztig, “Holocaust Museums, Holocaust Memorial Culture, and Individuals.”
117 Fracapane, “International Organisations in the Globalisation of Holocaust Education.”
118 Walden, Digital Holocaust Memory, Education and Research.
119 Brownstein, Holocaust Cinema Complete.
120 Skloot, “The Theatre of the Holocaust.”
121 Ionescu, “Representing the Holocaust in Architecture.”
122 Oztig, “Holocaust Museums, Holocaust Memorial Culture, and Individuals.”
123 Boswell and Rowland, Virtual Holocaust Memory.
124 Ebbrecht-Hartmann, “Commemorating from a Distance” and Walden, Digital Holocaust Memory, Education and Research.
125 Ebbrecht-Hartmann and Divon, “Hashtagging the Holocaust.”
127 Dalziel, “Becoming the ‘Holocaust Police’.”
128 Ebbrecht-Hartmann, “Commemorating from a Distance.”
129 Kopstein, Subotić, and Welch, Politics, Violence, Memory.
130 Cauvin, Public History and Noiret, Tebeau, and Zaagsma, Handbook of Digital Public History.
131 Gear, Eppel, and Koziol-Mclain, “Advancing Complexity Theory as a Qualitative Research Methodology.”
132 Cresswell and Plano Clark, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research.
133 Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner, “Towards a Definition of Mixed Methods Research.”
134 Manca, Rehm, and S. Haake, “Holocaust Remembrance on Facebook during the Lockdown.”
135 Manca, “Digital Holocaust Memory on Social Media.”
136 Galai, “The Transnational Mythscape of the Second World War” and Levy and Sznaider, The Holocaust and Memory in The Global Age.
137 Assmann, Shadows of Trauma.
138 Jaeger, The Second World War in the Twenty-First-Century Museum.
139 Knowles, Cole, and Giordano, Geographies of the Holocaust.
140 Boum and Stein, The Holocaust and North Africa and Kissi, “Integrating sub-Saharan Africa into a Historical and Cultural Study of the Holocaust.”
141 Kühne and Rein, Agency and the Holocaust and Morina, “The ‘Bystander’ in Recent Dutch Historiography.”
142 Rothberg, The Implicated Subject.
143 Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jewry and Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders.
144 Stanton, The Ten Stages of Genocide.
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Stefania Manca
Stefania Manca currently holds the position of Research Director at the Institute of Educational Technology of the Italian National Research Council. Her research interests include social media and social network sites in both formal and informal learning, teacher education, professional development, digital scholarship, and Student Voice-supported participatory practices in schools. She has previously led the IHRA grant number 2020-792 project titled ‘Countering Holocaust distortion on Social Media. Promoting the positive use of Internet social technologies for teaching and learning about the Holocaust’ as the coordinator. She is also currently involved in several research projects that explore the application of social media to Holocaust education and remembrance from a socio-technical and learning ecology perspective.