Production of Ancient and Medieval History Content for Social Networks: An Educational Process in the 21st Century

by Jéssica da Costa Minati Moraes

Reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling

The perspective of using pedagogical networks as the main tool of Instagram has made it a great ally in the dissemination of historical knowledge within the themes of Ancient and Medieval History. NEAM – Núcleo de Estudos Antigos e Medievais, has existed at Unesp de Assis since 1985, and from 2021, in a pandemic context, began to produce authorial content for social media. Our goal as history students and research group is to promote culture and historical awareness, in addition to arousing the interest of people inside and outside the university (Araújo, 2018)
Regarding NEAM, the group was founded with the main objective of supporting research and training in the areas of Ancient and Medieval History, but as is inevitable in the 21st century and a world so networked, the group took a technological leap, and in addition to the content produced for social networks (mainly Instagram), it also organized and produced workshops and lectures, open to the general public.
Today, we realize that this insertion of research groups from the most diverse areas in social networks is increasingly present, and we seek to always be updated on the news and different ways of sharing knowledge on the networks. It is in our plans, for example, the development of a wiki-style platform, for the dissemination of authorial content already produced by teachers, and hope that this platform can help basic education students in their research. For now, the content is only stored in the feed of the social network itself.
Another important point defined by the group so that access to content is universal is the use of simpler language, not so much academic, making reading more pleasant (Levi, 2014), since it is not possible to insert such extensive content, it must be objective and with simplified language. Thus, the post becomes more interesting for those who are not at the university, and it is also more fun and enjoyable to read, without losing the scientific commitment to the sources and references.
For the formulation of this project and the initiative of transmitting education with the help of the media, we took into account what is said by Paulo Freire and Sérgio Guimarães, in the work Educar com Mídia, where we seek, like the authors, to break with the unidirectionality, because our goal is not just to send information, but to promote a debate about the content, and make people interact with the content, comment, ask questions and ask questions. It is impossible that when transmitting the content, there is no possibility of answering or questioning

Olhe, não sou um especialista nisso, mas não tenho dúvida nenhuma de que, por exemplo, a chamada unidirecionalidade do canal de comunicação é algo muito discutível. A televisão, por exemplo, não é necessariamente, imutavelmente, unidirecional, entendes? E é até evidente o que estou dizendo: pode-se usar a televisão com ida e volta. (Freire; Guimarães, 2013, p. 22)

The process for producing the content, despite seeming quite complex, is quite simple. At first, we decided that the posts should not be completely random, but rather follow a line of reasoning and theme. And it should not be inconsistent either, as Instagram favors the organic dissemination of content, that is, the one that has no financial resources invested, reaching users from the comments, shares, and likes of other users (Freitas, Borges & Rios, 2016).
The next step was to decide on the theme used in the posts, and together with the entire research group, it was decided that this theme would be divided into seasons with a predetermined theme and all posts should be inserted in that theme in some way. Within Ancient and Medieval History, we chose to talk about themes that cover both areas. The first dealt with heroes and anti-heroes, from the perspective of Joseph Campbell, and analyzed the duality of characters and the complexity of their personalities. Some of the characters chosen were Nero, Diocletian, Achilles, Zeus, Joan of Arc, and Julius Caesar, among others, but always leaving it up to the reader to analyze the content and assess how he saw that character through the theme.
In the second season, we also chose to use a work by Joseph Campbell as the basis of the Comparative Mythology theme (Rodrigues & Groppo, 2012), bringing mythological elements such as the sun, fertility, serpent, creation in the different known myths. For example, in the “fertility” element, content producers could talk about how fertility is seen in different mythologies, whether Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Viking, Mayan, etc., as well as the use of semiotic elements for interpretation. of these myths (Santaella, 1983).
For the future, the group is still in development for the third season of posts, which will have as its theme the biographies of the most diverse characters from Ancient and Medieval History, to help students from basic education schools in the production of content, since NEAM’s social networks are part of the university’s Núcleo de Ensino project. During the remote teaching period, this interaction was not possible, mainly due to problems with internet accessibility and means of access (computers, cell phones, tablets, etc.) to public schools, which brings together people from the most diverse socioeconomic situations.
In addition to producing content for social networks, every year we add students from the first year of the university, who wish to produce content. And we also treat this activity as a way to arouse interest in scientific research, since to write a post, it is necessary to research the content, writing and of course historical and scientific curiosity. The research group works in a way in which the student is free to choose their research topics, but, at the same time, it also promotes cooperation. Together with NEAM, some other groups and projects work together, they are the #Veredas_Digitais – Centro de Tecnologias e Humanidades, which works from a Digital Humanities perspective, and also the CPEP project (Centro de Pesquisas e Estudos Plinianos), which brings together the letters exchanged between senator Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan.

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Jéssica da Costa Minati Moraes is a postgraduate student in History at Universidade Estadual Paulista. She is also a member of the research groups NEAM – Núcleo de Estudos Antigos e Medievais and #Veredas_Digitais – Centro de Tecnologias e Humanidades. At the moment, researching in the area of Late Antiquity, in the 4th and 5th centuries CE