Followers, fans, likes—at first glance, these don’t sound like they belong in a scientific or heritage setting. But they do. Because the moment communication moves beyond internal dialogue, it becomes relational. And social media, with all its unpredictability, has become a space where those relationships leave traces—visible, measurable, and worth paying attention to.
Together with colleagues, I explored this idea in a paper based on a round table held at the 21st Cultural Heritage and New Technologies Conference in Vienna back in 2016. What started as a focused discussion on archaeology turned into a broader reflection on communication strategy, public expectations, and institutional blind spots.
Looking at it from today’s perspective, the piece is—if anything—more relevant than it was then. Social media has moved from being an “add-on” to being a primary arena of public dialogue. The gap between what institutions want to say and what audiences are ready to hear hasn’t closed—it has grown. And while tools to analyse social data have become more sophisticated, the mindset for using them strategically is still evolving.
Because social data isn’t about chasing numbers. It’s about asking better questions:
What resonates? What doesn’t? Where do misunderstandings emerge?
And more importantly—what do we do with that knowledge?
Was kommt wirklich an? Was bleibt ungehört? Wo entstehen Missverständnisse?
Und vor allem: Was folgt daraus?
For many years, I’ve worked with organisations—academic, cultural, and civic—who want to improve their communication but still approach it from a sender mindset. Social media challenges that. It forces us to stop assuming what people need to hear and start observing what they actually react to.
That doesn’t mean giving up expertise. It means connecting it to relevance.
What social data makes visible is not just trends, but tension: between what we want to say and what our audiences are ready to hear. Between expert narratives and lived experience. Between intention and interpretation.
Handled thoughtfully, that tension becomes productive. It helps shape communication that is more than just outreach—it becomes dialogue.
To the article:
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/sdh/article/view/23245