Historical twitterers: between the old school history and the new public uses of History

Abstract

The school is losing the monopoly of the significance of the past that has been sustained since the late nineteenth century in Mexico. Various public uses of history, especially large mass media, tourism and social networking, are undermining school power. Twitter, with its dynamism, is an open space where historical twitterers openly face the teaching of history and try to supplant the teacher in supposing to tell a true story. In this struggle, Twitter users innovate but also make use of traditional forms of signifying the past. This text is part of a qualitative research investigating the vicinity and distances between school history and the history in Twitter. It also deals with the public (and politic) dispute for the redefinition of historical figures inside and outside the classroom.