Past Reality Meets Reality Television and Social Media: Southern Charm as a Tool in Education, Outreach, and Scholarship

ABSTRACT

With reference to the Bravo Network’s reality television program, Southern Charm, this paper explores how television programs and social media sites can serve as a platform to discuss the insensitive public portrayal of African American history and slavery. First, I suggest how reality television and social media might be used by learning communities to critically analyze representations of race and slavery. Second, I offer a method for using these media as a platform to explore material evidence for past social worlds. Finally, I demonstrate that popular media is a useful tool in understanding diverse stakeholder feelings on slavery and racism within educational settings. Based on my experiences with the pedagogical approaches and learning activities, engagement with and critical analysis of popular perceptions and treatments of death and burial in the context of slavery can contribute to effective teaching and learning of past and present constructs of race and racism.

KEYWORDS:

• Public archaeology
• slavery
• racism
• reality television
• social media

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the reviewers of this article, as well as colleagues from Utica College, the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), and FPAN’S Cemetery Resource Protection Training program, for valuable feedback on the data collection, analysis, and writing of this research. I am especially grateful to Utica College for providing funding and support for this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note about contributor

Helen Blouet is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Utica College in New York. Her research interests include historical and public archaeology of burial sites, race, class, and religion in the Caribbean and United States.

ORCID

Helen Blouet http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2668-6499