History Communicators is Launched

The subdiscipline of history communication is set in motion at #NCPH2015

  1. Science has Science Communicators. Should History have History Communicators?

    The question was posed at our “History Communicators” panel at #NCPH2015 (session #s12). The response from public historians? YES! Public historians communicate history to non-experts on a daily basis. This makes public historians perfectly suited to occupy the middle position between new historical scholarship and the interests and needs of non-experts, using all the communications channels and new media available.

    The Background

    I first wrote about History Communicators in June 2014:
    Thumbnail for History Communicators - What They Are & Why We Need Them | Jason Steinhauer | Public History | Washington, D.C.History Communicators – What They Are & Why We Need Them | Jason Steinhauer | Public History | Washington, D.C.
    For next year’s National Council on Public History conference, I’ve introduced the idea of ” HISTORY COMMUNICATORS .” I believe History Communicators will be vital to the future of the history and public history professions, and to ensuring history remains relevant in the 21st century.
    Jim Grossman and I then wrote about it in the November 2014 issue of Perspectives, calling it either the “History Communicator” or the “History Mediator”:
    Thumbnail for Historians and Public Culture: Widening the Circle of AdvocacyHistorians and Public Culture: Widening the Circle of Advocacy
    icholas Kristof’s plea for the return of academics to the arena of public affairs, nine months ago in the New York Times, met with a predictable response: Oh no, sir; we professors are publishing in your newspaper quite prodigiously.
     I then introduced the idea of the “History Communicator” on History@Work:
     Introducing History Communicators
    Just as science has Science Communicators, I’ve proposed that history needs History Communicators. The idea of History Communicators, and how public historians may fill these roles, will be discussed in a panel at the National Council on Public History annual meeting in Nashville.
    The basic premise: Science has trained a generation of scientists and science lovers to be science communicators
    Thumbnail for UC Santa Cruz - Science Communication ProgramUC Santa Cruz – Science Communication Program
    UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, Ca 95064 ©2014 Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved.. 128.114.113.115

    Should history prepare historians to be history communicators? If so, what would that look like? What should that pedagogy be? What role would History Communicators play in the profession? How would they enrich the understanding of history among non-experts

These questions and more were on the table for the NCPH panel.

The Session

Turnout for our session was great–standing room only!

As a natural extension of the work that public historians already do, it’s clear there is an appetite for engagement with this idea. Increasingly this is also the direction the field is headed: driven by technology, the communication revolution has made communicating historical research across print, web, multimedia and audio platforms crucial to the success of history organizations and to sharing new scholarship and interpretations with key stakeholders who are non-historians: public audiences, students, teachers, journalists, funders and elected officials. The paradigms are shifting–and emerging public historians are eager for new approaches:

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588042633978781697

https://twitter.com/gordonbelt/status/588771522787069952

We began with the origins of the History Communicator idea, and spoke about how the field of Science Communication has communicated complex scientific concepts to non-experts–policymakers, students, the general public–for a generation. Science Communicators have generated increased enthusiasm, funding, and understanding of science. Could History Communicators do the same?

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588772080382009345

https://twitter.com/evfaue_faue/status/588774895376539649

@RebeccaOnion of Slate.com spoke of how historians and journalists writing about history currently use the Internet and social media to share historical knowledge, and the perception that historians on Twitter tend to speak to one another as opposed to a wider public:

@JulieThePH next discussed the challenges of conducting original historical scholarship while fulfilling a role of a museum curator, educator and public historian. Through her work she bridges the gap between academic scholarship and the public’s understanding of history:

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588779424532852738

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588779741915848704

https://twitter.com/evfaue_faue/status/588780413902000128

Finally, @PastPunditry reflected on the challenges of communicating political history in the public sphere. Through her work with publications such as U.S. News & World Report and in Think Tanks, it’s clear that history can easily become politicized and that the strong voices of History Communicators are essential to combat ‘bad history’ in the public domain:

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588781629172273152

With a sense of the opportunities and challenges in journalism, on the web, in museums and archives, and in the political arena, we then launched into a spirited conversation with the audience on how together we can better define the History Communicator role and put these ideas into action:

https://twitter.com/gordonbelt/status/588785143193665536

History Communicators can evangelize for the profession as a whole:

https://twitter.com/evfaue_faue/status/588782723147399168

History Communicators can speak to *all* audiences, intellectual ones and non:

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588788390776197120

We launched our new hashtag: #histcomm

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588791865970917377

https://twitter.com/gordonbelt/status/588792026663149569

And we asked how can History Communicators find opportunities to do their work:

Many emerging public historians can see this role for themselves in the profession:

https://twitter.com/gordonbelt/status/588793320006090752

https://twitter.com/Knies40/status/588807646070747136

@lizcovart even updated her website to announce herself as a History Communicator!

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588874240163708928

Next Steps – Advocacy, Discussion, Meat on the Bones

Could history communication become an area of concentration in public history graduate programs?

How do we ensure that we are not further stratifying the history profession?

What other fields should we be in conversation with?

There is much more dialogue to be had and issues to think through. Most importantly, the session left many of us inspired about the possibilities.

https://twitter.com/AshleyWLuskey/status/588791538941059072

https://twitter.com/gordonbelt/status/588793320006090752

https://twitter.com/Knies40/status/589165437428064256

Have Ideas? Join the conversation: #histcomm

https://twitter.com/lizcovart/status/588793802124615680

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