Many of us are familiar with the concept of in person academic conferences. However, digital spaces allow for such connectivity that there has been a movement towards conducting conferences online, and not only through Zoom. The Public Archaeology Twitter Conference (PATC) is just what the title implies; a conference for public archaeologists, held solely on twitter.
Participants present their papers via Twitter, during an allotted 15 minute time slot. They discuss their paper though 12-20 tweets, using the relevant hashtag. They then can respond to questions posed to them on twitter, and can use any kind of media in their presentations and responses, from photos to gifs. While a conference for this year has not yet been announced, you can access previous presentations through searching the designated hashtag for each year (#PATC1, #PATC2, #PATC3, #PATC4, and #PATC5). In previous years public archaeologists such as Kate Ellenberger, Lorna-Jane Richardson, Shawn Graham, Sara Head, Katherine Cook, and Charles Webster, among others, have participated in these conferences.
Below is part of Kate Ellenberger's (@precatlady) presentation in the PATC4 in 2019 as an example.
In my opinion, PATC is a wonderful opportunity for us to explore the ability of digital spaces, particularly social media, to connect us and allow for academia to become accessible to all. I'm wondering if you guys see the value in twitter conferences or do you feel that it's too disjointed, particularly because of the many different tweets this entails?
I think that using spaces such as Twitter is a really interesting idea because it removes some of the barriers to participating in conferences from an academic perspective, such as the financial burden of traveling to and participating in the actual event. You can essentially participate in this conference from anywhere in the world, without ever leaving your bed! Additionally, members of the public can easily access the conference and benefit from what's being shared. Online conferences on a public platform remove some of the gatekeeping aspect of conferences and academia in general. However, this also leaves conferences and their participants particularly open to vitriol from trolls and other particularly negative people on the internet. Do you think that this is something worth enduring for the benefit of the accessibility feature of online/twitter conferences? I'd love to hear some of your thoughts!
Sources: https://publicarchaeologyconference.wordpress.com/
1 comment:
Hi Sam!
I think that this is a really interesting concept and one that I have to admit that I hadn't heard about before. I think that this idea is a really important one for reaching a wider public audience (both in times of Covid and in general). While I feel like it's a bit of an unconventional format, having speakers present their ideas through a series of tweets rather than in the form of a symposium or poster presentation, I think that the thread feature on Twitter would allow this to be a successful method of presentation and that this method of information dissemination can have great benefit.
As you mention, the hosting of this conference through Twitter removes many accessibility barriers that both academics and non-academics face to participating in conferences. I think that the greatest benefit of this platform for public outreach is that it can allow us to reach a wider audience than we may have otherwise, especially individuals who may not be very aware of archaeology and things that are happening within the discipline. Many people are on Twitter these days and the structure of Twitter, with hashtags and trending pages, may make it easier for people to come across things that they were previously unaware of and access information about it. In contrast, a Zoom conference - I would say one of the more popular replacements for in-person conferences during Covid - often requires people to know about and register for the conference before it occurs, which is likely to limit the scope of people who are going to engage in this type of content.
While the benefit of a registration feature may be less engagement with trolls on the internet - a concern that you rightly point out - I think that if we really want to engage with the public and the narratives of archaeology that occur in public, acknowledging and dismantling harmful misconceptions is an important part of that, and Twitter provides a platform for this discussion to be visible to many. Additionally, this form of conversation
allows for the public to actually engage with professionals in the form of replies and allows for different perspectives on issues to be presented and heard by larger institutions. Overall, I believe that Twitter conferences can be a productive and accessible way for us to disseminate information and I will be on the lookout for the next Public Archaeology Twitter Conference!
-Teegan
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