Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219

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Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/daach

Instagram as a tool for archaeological science communication

Gino Caspari a, b, *
a
Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Australia
b
Institute of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the accelerated growth the social media platform Instagram has seen over the course of the Covid-19
Social media pandemic its potential as a tool for communicating archaeological science is becoming ever more apparent.
Science communication The platforms’ focus on images and video makes it specifically suited for visually rich fields like archaeology.
Instagram
Here we present the results of a three-year effort in archaeological science communication on the platform,
Education
Public archaeology
analyzing audiences, impacts, and issues arising. The amount of archaeological content on the platform is
growing rapidly, but reaching a broad audience effectively needs to be tied to well-defined communication
strategies. We argue that Instagram can be turned into a powerful educational tool for public archaeology,
including providing guidance for new students, mitigating pervasive conspiracy theories, elucidating the issues
with collecting and trading artifacts, and adding nuance to the public image of archaeology.

1. Introduction
With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the following
lockdowns, the shift of educational activities and work into virtual
spaces has been accelerated (cf. Loeb et al., 2020; Kloos et al., 2021;
Ronkowitz and Ronkowitz 2021; Tjahjono et al., 2020). Social media
platforms like Instagram saw a spike in adoption. Instagram has now
more than 1 billion monthly active users (Instagram, 2021a) and is used
for science communication across a variety of fields (cf. Huffer 2018;
Hassett et al., 2018; Heathcote 2021; Yu and Sharma 2021; Hines 2019;
Phillips et al., 2019, González Romo et al., 2020). Almost 70% of
Instagram’s active users are aged 34 years or younger (Statista 2021).
Many scientific institutions start to recognize the importance of
outreach. Efforts to enhance science communication are furthered
through training programs, emphasizing communication as a part of
science within curricula, and communication components are becoming
part of funding decisions (Dudo 2013). Large audiences predominantly
inform themselves online (Brossard 2013) potentially leading to a situ­
ation where “without applied research on how to best communicate
science online, we risk creating a future where the dynamics of online
communication systems have a stronger impact on public views about
science than the specific research that we as scientists are trying to
communicate” (Brossard and Scheufele 2013). Scientist’s calls to engage
in quantitatively more but also more effective science communication
have increased (Besley et al., 2018).
Despite all of this, the adoption of Instagram as a tool for archaeo­
logical science communication by individual researchers has been
relatively slow since the establishment of the platform in 2010. This void
has been quickly filled with accounts touting pseudoscience from lost
ancient technology “explanations” for megalithic structures to ancient
alien builders. Artist’s works are regularly appropriated by such ac­
counts as “evidence” (Fig. 1). Instagram also provides a platform for
trafficking illicit antiquities including human remains (Huffer and Gra­
ham 2017). Explicit or implicit offers to buy illicit artifacts reach the
author several times per week (Fig. 2). Artifacts are offered in direct
messages but also through public posts or on private profiles. Items are
coming from a diversity of geographical regions and encompass small
chance finds as well as major rare archaeological items.
In September 2018 the Instagram account @ginocaspari was estab­
lished. Daily posts in English language with a focus on archaeological
news, research projects, anecdotal stories and personal comments aim to
provide insight into the world of archaeological research. The goal was
to reach a broader public audience and provide impulses for a lay
audience to become curious and learn more about archaeological
research and science. Simple language connected with personal stories
aimed to make the world of archaeology - which remains often opaque
to the layperson – more accessible and comprehensible. The goal is not
an all-around archaeological education, but the regular supply of
informative and personal insights into the field in order to create a
broader understanding of the subject and counter myths and prejudices.

* Institute of Archaeological Science, University of Bern, Switzerland.

E-mail address: gino.caspari@iaw.unibe.ch.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.daach.2022.e00219
Received 11 September 2021; Received in revised form 1 February 2022; Accepted 27 February 2022
Available online 7 March 2022
2212-0548/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
G. Caspari
Three years later in late August 2021 the effort has led to a community of
more than 130’000 people interested in archaeology who regularly learn
about archaeological topics, new projects, research papers, discoveries,
and ways to get involved. The account reaches between 1.3 and 2.1
million impressions and around 200’000 interactions each month. This
article aims to provide insights into archaeological science communi­
cation on Instagram in general and on the account @ginocaspari in
particular, allowing other archaeological researchers to draw upon
tested strategies and communicate research to a broader public. Un­
derstanding the audience consuming archaeological content on Insta­
gram and identifying platform-specific issues, are key for an effective
archaeological science communication.
2. Background
Instagram is a freely available (advertisement revenue based), mo­
bile focused image and video sharing application. Founded in 2010 as a
simple photo sharing service which allowed the application of filters on
uploaded images, the application has since grown to become one of the
largest social media networks and communication platforms. Facebook
acquired Instagram in 2012 for 1 billion USD when it had around 30
million users (New York Times, 2012). It has since grown to over 1
billion active monthly users (Instagram, 2021a). It is important to note
that social media platforms are extremely dynamic environments which
are constantly changing and evolving. As of writing this article video
focused content especially in the reels format generates a lot of organic
(unpaid) reach. The reach of individual images – Instagram’s oldest
format – has been declining steadily. We see the trend towards more
video continuing and believe that Instagram is ultimately aiming to
develop into a mobile video application focusing on vertical content.
Changes have to be constantly monitored and trends need to be followed
in order to continue reaching a larger audience. The power the platform
Fig. 1. Recent work of artists appropriated by Instagram accounts to support pseudoarchaeological hypotheses. A) Photomontage by A. Bonazzi who creates
artworks inspired by the texts of H.P. Lovecraft. B) and C) Sculptures by J. Castro used as evidence that prehistoric people were able to melt stone for megalithic
constructions (Images reproduced with permission of the artists).
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Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219
exerts over its users and the way it mitigates contact between the content
providers and content consumers has to be seen as problematic (see 5.4).
3. Materials and methods
In order to characterize the landscape of archaeological information
and science communication on Instagram, popular archaeological
hashtags were collected and ranked based on the number of posts which
have a particular hashtag in the caption. We selected the most popular
hashtags starting with the letters “archaeo” or “archeo” to gain an
impression of the English language contributions. We only took into
account hashtags which had at least 10’000 posts associated with them.
Information on the number of posts featuring specific hashtags is pub­
licly available and can be collected without any issues. We then cross­
checked with the hashtag “archaeology” in different languages and
selected the ones which had more than 10’000 contributions, to get a
broad picture of non-English speaking audiences. The initial collection
was created in March 2020. The number of created posts was then again
assessed in August 2021, in order to gain an overall sense of the activity
in the archaeological niche on Instagram throughout the past year and a
half.
To gain a more in-depth look into the microcosm of an individual
science communication account, @ginocaspari was chosen for analysis.
A survey of publicly available data from followers of the Instagram ac­
count was conducted twice. The first time in October 2019, user ID,
account name, account type, and where available full name were collected.
The second time in March 2021 user ID, account name, account type,
follower count, following count, and where available full name were
collected. For ethical reasons, data are only published here in aggre­
gated form which do not allow the identification of individual accounts
or persons.
Instagram provides internal statistics for business and creator
G. Caspari Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219

accounts which are accessible directly through the account and include Table 1
demographics, gender distribution, limited geographic information, Popular hashtags of the archaeology niche in English.
metrics of the performance of individual posts, as well as overall ac­ Archaeology in English
counts reached, and growth information on the account. Data remain
Hashtag March 2020 August 2021 Growth %
available for two months before they become inaccessible. Data within
the two month timeframe can easily be accessed in an aggregated format #archaeology 1033862 1392299 34.67
#archaeology 904088 1248961 38.15
but cannot be analyzed on the level of individual user accounts. #archeologist 110294 177564 60.99
Instagram stories allow to integrate simple polls which can be #archaeological 76161 118337 55.38
answered with Yes or No by the viewers. We leveraged Instagram polls #archaeological 66883 91641 37.02
to gather data on the trust towards and impact of the account within a #archeologicalsite 66492 97030 45.93
#archaeologylife 55429 95485 72.27
24h time period during which the stories were active.
#archaeologicalsite 48976 72317 47.66
#archeologist 32216 51918 61.16
4. Results #archeologylovers 14651 36865 151.62
#archeologymuseum 13334 19506 46.29
4.1. Hashtags and growth of the archaeology niche #archeologicalmuseum 11210 13281 18.47
#archeologylife 10934 19287 76.39
#archaeologylovers 10494 36075 243.77
Hashtags have the function of keywords and search tags on Insta­ #archaeologicalmuseum 9298 12127 30.43
gram and allow posts of a specific topicality to be found. They also help #archaeologystudent 8596 11970 39.25
the platform to group similar content and make it more discoverable.
The largest hashtags in the English speaking archaeology niche have
like #archaeologylovers/#archeologylovers saw a rapid increase in
over one million posts (Table 1). Over the checked timeframe of 18
usage of 151.62% and 243.77% respectively. In the period between
months the use of selected archaeological English language hashtags on
March 2020 and August 2021 the overall usage of the largest English
posts showed a growth of 66.21% (median 46.97%). Individual hashtags
language hashtags in the archaeology niche grew by 41.31%.

Fig. 2. Traded artifacts on Instagram. Illicitly traded artifacts encompass all categories of antiquities and human remains from small chance finds to major items.
A) Sculpture (Turkey). B) Helmet (Ukraine). C) Mummy (Iran).

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G. Caspari Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219

(1’021’745 instances). This does not equate to a growth in posts by the respectively allows to calculate a retention rate of followers via the user
same percentage, since one post can use up to 30 hashtags and some ID. Out of the 14’555 accounts following @ginocaspari in October 2019,
archaeologically themed posts do not use any hashtags. 12’287 (84.42%) were still following the account 1.5 years later in
Growth seems to have been similarly pronounced across different March 2021.
language niches for archaeological topics with an average growth rate of
68.57% (median 57.82%) as shown in Table 2. While all language niches 4.2.4. Engagement rates
saw considerable growth in the usage of hashtags, German posts with Engagement rates are used in social media marketing to measure
#archäologie doubled (100.58%) and posts in Farsi with #‫ﺏﺍﺱﺕﺍﻥ‬ how well the audience interacts with content. There are several metrics
‫ ﺵﻥﺍﺱﯼ‬tripled (222.07%). taking into account interactions such as likes, comments, shares and
saves. In its simplest and most common form the likes and comments of a
4.2. Details of an individual account post are summed up and divided through the number of followers of an
account. To get a more realistic metric, it is useful to use weighted av­
The account @ginocaspari has become one of the larger science erages giving different importance to different types of interaction (cf.
communication accounts with a focus on archaeology on Instagram over Arman and Sidik 2019). The current engagement rate of an account is
the past years. The author who runs the account has direct access to often measured through averaging the engagement rate of the last
internal statistics and to the follower base and is therefore able to twelve posts. Engagement rates are a metric prone to influence by bots
generate more information based on this access than for any other ac­ and purchased likes, but when carefully assessed, can provide a useful
count. In October 2019, a first assessment collected publicly available feedback and first impression of an account’s connection with its audi­
information from 14’555 accounts following @ginocaspari. In March ence. Smaller accounts tend to have much higher engagement rates.
2021, a second survey collected the publicly available data of 123’529 Engagement tends to drop as accounts grow larger. The values in Table 3
accounts following @ginocaspari. Up-to-date summary demographics can be used as a benchmark to assess how engaged the audience of a
from August 2021 are directly provided by the platform through the particular account is. The account @ginocaspari has had shifting
account insights. Retention and engagement rates can be calculated engagement rates over the years characterized through a decline due to
from publicly available data (except for countries in which likes are the growing number of followers. A typical engagement rate over 12
hidden). Polls in the Instagram stories allow to ask simple questions and posts on the account in 2021 ranges from 6.9% to 3.3% (see Table 4).
collect data directly from the respondents.
4.2.5. Polls
4.2.1. Demographics Instagram stories which contained a poll were published in August
As of August 2021, the account has a following of 138’732. 72.6% 2021. Story viewers were asked to answer four questions (see Table 5).
are men, 27.4% are women. The age distribution of male and female The first question [1] asked about the reliability of the archaeological
followers are similar with most (36.4% of men, 33.98% of women) being information provided and the trust a follower has developed in the ac­
25–34 year old and 28.2% of men and 26.5% of women being 35–44 count as a source of information. “I generally trust archaeological in­
years old (Fig. 3). formation on this account.” Question [2] asked about the ability of the
account to promote independent learning. “A post I have seen on this
4.2.2. Account size distribution of followers account has led me to read more about a topic.” Question [3] asked
Each account has a publicly accessible follower number. The dataset about the learning outcome due to contact with the account. “I feel I
obtained in March 2021 allows to calculate the size of the average ac­ know more about archaeology now than I knew before following
count following @ginocaspari based on their own following. The large @ginocaspari.” Question [4] asked about the impact the user’s inter­
majority of accounts following @ginocaspari has a limited follower action with the account had on their image of archaeology. “My image of
number of 1000 or less (86.82%). archaeology has changed since following @ginocaspari.” All questions
were to be answered with either yes or no.
4.2.3. Reach and retention rate A high response rate of 28% of story viewers seems to indicate an
Organic reach is the number of accounts reached without paying. I.e. engaged audience. Almost all poll participants seem to trust archaeo­
without advertising content through the platform. According to statistics logical information provided on the account (97.72%). Surprisingly, as
provided by Instagram the account reaches around 1.3–2.1 million ac­ many as 87.32% at least occasionally read more about a topic when they
counts each month, generating more than 4 million impressions and see a post on the account. 84.16% feel they have improved their
around 200’000 interactions. archaeological knowledge while 55.21% of poll participants indicate
Having two datasets from October 2019 and March 2020 that their perception of archaeology has changed through interacting
with the account.
Table 2
Archaeology hashtags in other languages. 5. Discussion
Archaeology in Different Languages
The amount of archaeological content on Instagram is growing
Hashtag March 2020 August 2021 Growth %
quickly based on the overall use of archaeological hashtags. In many
#archeologia 316843 455476 43.75 instances the quality of the provided information is limited, a lot of
#arqueologia 239420 387250 61.75 content is misleading or belongs to the realm of pseudoscience and
#arkeoloji 171132 280749 64.05
#археология 107327 164742 53.50
conspiracy theories worse yet, some content promotes the trafficking of
#arqueología 78055 122452 56.88 illicit artifacts and thus contributes directly to the destruction of cultural
#archeologie 73321 116399 58.75 heritage. There is, however, an enormous interest by the public to un­
#arqueology 41542 57621 38.71 derstand how archaeological research works in practice. Reliable and
#arkeologi 35252 50708 43.84
consistent information is valued by many.
#‫ﺏﺍﺱﺕﺍﻥ ﺵﻥﺍﺱﯼ‬ 28686 92389 222.07
#archéologie 26813 45430 69.43 Given Instagram’s demographics, it is easily possible to reach a
#archäologie 25593 51335 100.58 younger audience. The main age range of followers of the analyzed ac­
#考古学 10434 18022 72.72 count are between 25 and 34 years old, but a substantial portion (12.9%
#arkæologi 8061 11676 44.85 of men and 13.9% of women) are between 18 and 24. Anecdotally, this
#археологи 7251 9362 29.11
communication effort can also be shown to have an impact on the

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G. Caspari Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219

Fig. 3. Key demographics of the following of @ginocaspari. A) Age distribution of men, B) Age distribution of women. C) Percentage male vs. percentage female.
Note that while Instagram supports custom gender options for individual accounts, the statistics provided by Instagram do not seem to mirror this finer categori­
zation. N = 138’909, August 2021.

characters – it is the long-term exposure to reliable archaeological in­

Table 3
formation which allows for a better understanding of the subject matter.
Size distribution. Accounts following @ginocaspari as of March 2021. N =
A large majority of people follow the account consistently over a longer
123’529.
period of time. Over the analyzed time frame of 1.5 years, the account
Following Number of Accounts Percentage
was able to retain 84.42% of its followers while also growing the
0–500 85739 69.41% audience consistently. This high retention rate seems to indicate that
501–1000 21585 17.47% despite the dynamic environment of the platform, many users follow
1001–5000 14234 11.52%
science communication efforts continuously over a longer period of time
5001-15’000 1328 1.08%
>15’000 643 0.52% allowing for greater exposure to the subject matter. This builds trust in
the information that the account provides (97.72% trust archaeological
information on the account). It also increases the chance that an indi­
vidual is able to pick up archaeological information and learn something
Table 4
Average engagement rates for accounts of different sizes in 2020
about archaeological research. 87.32% indicated they started reading
(Influencer Marketing Hub, 2021: 14). more about a topic after seeing a post on the account and 84.16% state
that they know more about archaeology now than before following the
Number of Followers Average Engagement Rate
account. For 55.21% the account even changed their image of archae­
≤15’000 3.68% ology. Although the amount of interaction each post gets fluctuates
15’001–50’000 2.39%
significantly, overall engagement is high. Based on a comparison with
50’001–100’000 1.87%
100’001–500’000 1.62% engagement rate benchmarks for similar sized accounts, @ginocaspari
500’001-1’000’000 1.36% gets at least twice the interactions. The account regularly reaches a
>1’000’000 1.21% larger audience beyond the follower base, reaching 1.3–2.1 million ac­
counts each month. This leads to occasional exposure of a diverse
audience to archaeological research.
Table 5 Archaeological science communication has previously often been
Answers to Instagram story polls. August 2021. portrayed as facing a trade-off between reaching a wide audience and
Question Number of YES NO % of users who %YES staying true to scholarship. This is one of the reasons why many re­
views answered searchers are hesitant when it comes to dealing with journalists and
1 12’338 3’477 81 28.84% 97.72%
public communication more broadly. Scherzler (2007) has elaborated
2 10’412 3’024 439 33.26% 87.32% upon the interconnections between journalism and archaeology in her
3 9’434 2’822 531 35.54% 84.16% “notes on dealing constructively with the mass media.” Many of her
4 9’010 1’838 1’491 36.95% 55.21% guidelines hold equally true for communication on social media. First
and foremost, “communicating scientific results to an audience outside
decision of starting to obtain an archaeological degree. We know of 23 one’s own specialist subject is […] not only a question of good will, but
cases in which a person decided to study archaeology in part or specif­ also of skill” (Scherzler 2007). Engaging in direct science communica­
ically because of the information they accessed through the account. tion, the researcher becomes a communicator and thus needs to learn to
Most of the users interacting with @ginocaspari are small, personal present information in an interesting way. Story rather than scientific
accounts with less than 1001 followers (86.88%). While Instagram’s attention to detail becomes the focus. Learning the skill of science
format ultimately limits the amount of information which can be communication requires time and effort. “Steering the middle course
transferred in an individual post – captions are limited to 2’200 between the Scylla of scientific tedium and the Charybdis of popularism”

5
G. Caspari
(Harding 2007) is possible and direct science communication via social
media allows the individual researcher a higher degree of control over
the disseminated information than if the message is formed by a jour­
nalistic third party. Science communicators can adhere to a level of
language and simplification that is engaging while preserving scientific
integrity, but an awareness that effective communication is a skill that
has to be learned is paramount to a successful communication effort.
Below we share a few key success factors in creating effective
archaeological science communication content on the platform in the
hope that they might enhance the quality, quantity, and reach of reliable
archaeological information on social media. We also note problems and
issues to be aware of when engaging in archaeological science
communication.
5.1. Development of a niche and target audience
Defining a target audience and developing a niche is a key step in any
communication effort but often neglected by institutions and individual
researchers who engage in science communication. The audience on
Instagram as a major social media platform is heterogeneous. The
interdisciplinary nature of archaeology has the potential to attract a
wide range of people not necessarily belonging to a consistent category.
Some are interested in archaeological field research, the natural science
aspects, or experimental aspects. Others are specifically focused on
technical details of metallurgy or prehistoric hunting techniques. These
are widely varying groups that have to be recognized as such and only
then can be specifically addressed in an appropriate manner. Formu­
lating a conceptualization of the general content and a goal for the
communication effort is worthwhile before starting to post. Many
institutional accounts and small science communicators deliver het­
erogeneous content. This lack of focus shows in reduced growth and
interaction rates. When communicating archaeological science, the
posted content needs to have a clear topical relationship with the overall
theme of the account. Being aware what who the audience of a partic­
ular account is and what their needs and interests are, is key to growing
further. Once the topic and audience is established, it becomes easier to
deliver fitting content.
The defined topic and audience interest should ideally pervade the
entire account and create a consistent experience for followers and
visitors. Images need to grab the attention of users, stop the scrolling
movement and then lead to the person reading the caption and inter­
acting with the content. The quality and legibility of the visuals is key to
drawing attention. Image posts should provide a visual connection to the
theme of an account and also be understandable as a thumbnail version.
Fig. 4. Thumbnails and images as visual hooks. A) Lack of image quality (G. Caspari) B) Limited legibility as a thumbnail (T. Wallace) C) Lack of immediate visual
connection to the theme (A. Hutter) D) On topic, legible, sufficient image quality (G. Caspari).
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Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219
For archaeological science communication in particular the images work
as a visual narrative hook for the information which is delivered in the
caption (Fig. 4).
5.2. Frequency and time constraints
Regular activity is paramount in order to maintain engagement.
Instagram is characterized by an intense competition for the attention of
its users. The more a user interacts with a specific account the more
likely the individual will receive more content of said account. Due to
the limited space in users’ feeds and the limited time a person spends on
social media each day, a platform needs to select what content is shown
to its users. If a user follows 500 accounts and each of those posts once a
day, it is unlikely that the individual will have time to view, much less
interact with all of them. Accounts which post once every week or once
every month have slim chances of reaching a broad audience and
growing their follower base because they often do not manage to attract
consistent interest and are displaced by other content with which the
user interacts in the meantime. Many quickly growing accounts post at
least once a day. Instagram therefore implicitly demands a high fre­
quency of posts. This poses issues for individual scientists who have
limited material and visual content to use on the platform. Delivering
content across all of the platforms’ different formats can be challenging.
The majority of interactions happen within the first hours of uploading a
post. After 24h, most posts do not generate any interactions and are not
shown to the audience anymore.
5.3. The individual experience
Despite often being able to allocate a budget and human resources to
communication efforts, engagement rates on institutional accounts tend
to be lower than on accounts of individuals. Consciously connecting the
individual experience of being a researcher in an archaeological field
allows for the emergence of a personal connection with the audience.
The interest of a lay audience is not limited to data and new findings but
extends to the individual experience of the researcher including emo­
tions and opinions. Institutional accounts often do not manage to create
the small humane details which cause individuals to relate and ulti­
mately interact. Archaeological science communication by individual
researchers is effective exactly because they show personality and are
perceived as people with a particular view of the world. Over the long-
term, this establishes trust (see 4.4.5) and allows to transport reliable
information even to users who have a penchant for pseudoarchaeology.
It is key to take the audience, their questions, concerns, and opinions
G. Caspari
seriously. Doing this consistently while adding expertise to the
communication increases engagement and perceived reliability.
Frequent and in part personal questions from new students in
archaeological subjects support this notion of trust. It is quite unlikely
that a student will voice personal concerns und uncertainties with a
“faceless” institutional account. In this regard, it makes sense for edu­
cators to “go where the students are” (El Bialy and Jalali 2015) espe­
cially in a setting that is more and more dominated by online learning
experiences.
As this form of successful science communication is often quite
contrary to the formats and style we are used to consuming and pro­
ducing as academics, intertwining the individual experience with
archaeological science content is not without criticism. Questions
regarding selectiveness, dramatization, and romanticization have to be
addressed critically. Access to the audience also allows to address these
issues directly. Different formats such a live streams with other re­
searchers help to integrate a broader spectrum of opinions and per­
spectives. The advantages of integrating the individual research
experience into archaeological science communication in our opinion
helps to further learning processes and establish a connection with the
audience leading to a more sustainable impact of the communication.
5.4. Power imbalances and censorship
Instagram can be utilized effectively for archaeological science
communication (see 4.4.5) but there are manifold problems and chal­
lenges associated with the platform itself. The platform manages access
to an established community. Other than with a traditional communi­
cation campaign, it is neither the creator of the information nor the
recipient who actively decides who gets to see what. If engagement rates
drop, it takes a lot of work to rebuild them and reconnect with existing
followers. The rate of interaction decreases with an increasing number
of followers.
In July 2021 a system of content filters was introduced which was set
to “limit” by default (Instagram 2021b). This for example substantially
reduced the reach of contributions dealing erotic depictions on
archaeological objects, it also limits educational efforts in the field of
physical anthropology. Topics which might provoke the utterance of
contrarian political opinions can also be limited in reach. On the
analyzed account, posts about climate change and glacial archaeology
regularly are among the contributions with the lowest reach. It is
therefore advisable to build up secondary communication channels with
the audience in order to reduce the dependency on the platform.
6. Conclusion
Archaeological content on the social media platform Instagram is
growing rapidly. This broad public interest in archaeological topics can
be utilized to communicate archaeological science to a broad audience.
Science communication efforts by individual researchers can lead to the
creation of communities and allow to reach a younger lay audience
interested in the experience of archaeological research. High engage­
ment rates, people consuming archaeological information over a pro­
longed period of time, and good learning outcomes, indicate that the
platform can be an effective tool for educating a broad lay audience.
Trust can be established through authenticity and showing the indi­
vidual archaeological experience. This establishes a social network node
of archaeological expertise, providing a more nuanced notion of the
archaeological profession, countering pseudoscience, and raising
awareness of the problem of trade in illicit artifacts happening through
the platform.
Data availability
Due to legal and ethical constraints only aggregated data can be
Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 24 (2022) e00219
published. All relevant aggregated results are available from the paper.
Funding
No specific funding was provided for this study.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
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