Round Table: Target Groups, Users, Followers, Fans – The Nature and Potential of Social Data in Archaeology

Abstract

At the 21st Cultural Heritage and New Technologies conference (CHNT), which took place from Novembe 16th to 18th 2016 in Vienna, Austria, Carmen Löw organized a round table to discuss first experiences with social data from the use of social media in archaeology. The participants presented two Facebook accounts and one weblog owned by a UNESCO World Heritage, a research project and a private company. So far, social data has received too little attention in archaeology. Regardless of the limitations encountered with a user group with special age, sex and other regulations, social data helps us to understand at least a part of our stakeholders better and to adjust the information we offer in social media to their interests. To communicate in a professional manner, it is mandatory to understand who is on the receiving end of the information transportation process. Tools, all well-known and widely used in the world of economics, are often not affordable for scientific research in humanities and so we could mostly only guess who might be listening to us. Since archaeology is widely present in the internet, and since there are Facebook-accounts, websites and weblogs, it is now possible for us to get some reliable information about our followers and supporters. In this article, we provide basic information on communication, with a special focus on communication in the archaeological field, as well as figures on the current use of the Internet. We present data, possibilities for their interpretations and general observations on users, followers and fans in selected tools from the three examples mentioned above.

Keywords

• Social Data
• Communication
• Public Relations
• Internet
• User Data