#Histagram: Investigating Emotions in Historical Representations on Instagram

In the last years many projects addressing historical topics were launched on social media. Among educating about the past, the aim of such formats is to create subjective, emotional insights into the past. However, making use of emotions in historical learning contexts is broadly debated within the community of history didactics. It is assumed that emotionally charged presentations overwhelm individuals emotionally and reduce their ability to distance themselves from the presentation. However, whether such presentations indeed make use of emotional presentations remains unclear. Therefore, this investigation aimed to examine the amount and extend of emotionality within historical representations on Instagram. We conducted a qualitative content analysis on the nonverbally expressed emotions in historical social media posts, to see if emotions are used and recognizable in such posts at all. We found that in almost all posts in which people are shown emotions were displayed. Building on these findings, we exploratory investigated in a quantitative online experiment (N = 170) whether the presentation of emotions in social media posts of a historical figure could lead related emotions. The results showed that Instagram posts showing negative emotions via nonverbal cues more likely lead to the report of negative emotions than positive and vice versa. Consequently, the study’s findings contribute first empirical evidence to the ongoing debate of history didactics about the usage of emotions in historical social media learning settings and their potential to influence the followers’ emotional states.