Popularising archaeology: issues & potentiality of new transmission tools
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-09-20

While traditional media are dealing with the cultural issues about history and archaeology with a classic journalistic approach (interviews, great discoveries, objectivity), new media are building their own way of telling about science (first person monologue, specific stories, subjectivity). Nowadays, YouTube constitute a valuable source of information upon every field and subject. One and a half billions of people watch contents on this video platform each month and anyone can indeed open his own channel and upload his self-made videos. Some YouTubers are followed by thousands people through the world. Beyond the most well-known of YouTubers, the history channels Extra History and History Buffs count more than one million followers each and all their videos have been watched in average one million times, which gives an idea of the huge impact they have on the public. Video games appeared to be a great catalyst in various ways of discussing cultural contents, such as history, archaeology or politics. To some videographers born in the late 1980’s, the video game universe provided a solid basis to address other topics, which came in their mind afterthought. Our aim is to analyse this trend in the French speaking web world. Historic channels are not only run by archaeologists or historians, EAA ABSTRACT BOOK 2018 427 but also by amateurs and connoisseurs, telling about history, prehistory or the practice of archaeology itself. In this study, we intend to question the content and format of these videos, but also the links between science and publics. Do this DIY transmission must be owned only by legitimate specialized scientists in their discipline? What do professionals think about this way of popularizing science? Towards which dangers and derives might this model lead to? At the opposite, how can professionals use those numeric tools to promote the transmission of their discipline? 

Author(s): Basterrechea, Aurelia (ArchaeoConcept) - Cousino Rivera, Hugo (Freelance Journalist)