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Researching Holocaust Education and Activism on Social Media

by Dr Stefania Manca How is Holocaust memory being reshaped in the age of TikTok, Instagram, and digital activism? Drawing on her journey from educational technology to digital Holocaust memory and education, our latest visiting fellow explores how social media can both distort and revitalise the memory of the Holocaust. I have been a researcher in educational technology for almost 30 years, focusing on the opportunities and challenges of using digital tools in education. My background in education sciences has helped me develop methods and strategies to integrate digital practices into teaching and learning. In 2018–2019, I decided to connect this professional expertise with my long-standing personal interest in the Holocaust. This step marked the beginning of my engagement with Holocaust memory and education through a digital lens. I started a Doctoral programme in Education and ICT (e-learning) at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain, with a project entitled “Teaching and learning about the Holocaust on social media: A learning ecology perspective.” Since 2011, I had already been studying the use of social media in education, so it felt natural to bring these two fields together. At the time, research in this area was still scarce, as highlighted in [...]

By |2025-09-11T11:48:51+01:0011 September 2025|
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Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised about #AI #Auschwitz, and What We Can Do About It

By Prof. Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden Last week the BBC reported on spammers sharing ‘AI slop’ images of Auschwitz for profit. In this week’s blog, we respond to their article, reflecting on our years of research into Holocaust memory and AI. On Friday 29th August, the BBC published an article with the headline: ‘BBC reveals web of spammers profiting from AI Holocaust images.’ Whilst this might seem shocking, it shouldn’t be, and far from ‘spamming’, which can be considered a flippant action, the individuals involved in these profit-making schemes are using social media in conscious and sophisticated ways – as its logics intend it to be used. This should make us stop and ask: are platforms like Facebook good for Holocaust memory? On one hand, it would be easy (especially in the current political climate) to say, ‘not really’. On the other hand, if Holocaust museums and educational organisations want their authority to remain recognised widely, they need to be not only be present on these sites but enhance their visibility. As our previous research has argued (Walden 2021), professional Holocaust organisations need to adopt the strategies of apparent ‘bad actors’ if they want their messages to circulate as much as [...]

By |2025-09-02T13:32:24+01:002 September 2025|
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Listening in Latin America: Digital Holocaust Memory and Education in Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador

by Dr Kate Marrison Research fellow Dr Kate Marrison recently returned from Lima where she held a roundtable discussion with professionals working in the field of Holocaust education from Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador. This is what she found out. While there is a proliferation of scholarly interest in the digital development of Holocaust commemoration and education across Europe and the US, little attention has been paid to this work in Latin America. Last month the Memory Studies Association annual conference took place in Lima, so we took the opportunity to bring together colleagues to discuss their work within Holocaust organisations in Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú. To kick off, I asked contributors what digital interventions they had brought to their organisations and what are the challenges and opportunities they bring. Participants discussed some fascinating examples of their practice. They included a virtual tour of Museo del Holocausto de Buenos Aires and the first survivor interactive biography to be recorded in Spanish as part of the Dimensions in Testimony (DiT) project in collaboration with The Latin American Network for Education on the Shoah. Examples from Brazil included open-access online educational materials created by Museu [...]

By |2024-11-28T11:17:01+00:0022 August 2024|
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Holocaust Education and Social Media: What Young People Really Think 

by Dr Kate Marrison Dr Marrison reports from a recent event which brought together young people from across the UK to further their understanding of the Holocaust and its contemporary relevance.  We’re familiar with the pros and cons of social media, but what role can it play in Holocaust education, memorialisation and commemoration? This was the topic of a workshop I ran this month in London with an audience of 30 16-to 25 year olds at the Holocaust Educational Trust’s annual Ambassador Conference (AmCon). The Ambassadors come from across the UK and from a range of backgrounds. The initiative tasks young people to be ‘the driving force’ behind efforts to make sure that British people understand and remember the Holocaust.  Holocaust survivors and other educators were also present.  The workshop explored how museums, memorial sites and professional memory institutions harness social media. We kicked off with a quiz asking which were the most popular social media platforms they engage with – Instagram, Tiktok and Snapchat – and which three words describe their thoughts about social media being used for Holocaust education.  Attitudes varied from those optimistic about the potential of social media (‘educational’, ‘important’ and ‘useful’), to those who expressed [...]

By |2024-11-28T11:17:22+00:001 August 2024|
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“I’m a Holocaust survivor and…” : reflections on the USHMM ‘Next Chapter’ video series

This week’s blog from guest contributor Lauren Cantillon asks how do the videos broaden our ideas of the ‘Holocaust survivor’ figure, while also offering a vision for creating a connective digital Holocaust memory?

By |2024-11-28T11:22:53+00:0030 July 2020|
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Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

Contact

Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk

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