My name is Evan Smeenge and I am writing my dissertation on community social media engagement.

I am trying to determine who has the authority to tell history. Oral history is taking stories, spoken through mouth, by a bi-standard or witness, in order to learn more about the life of a people or city. This helps a museum address the topic that they are focusing on. I am doing this on a bigger scale. I have hundreds of photos, and am trying to get the community engaged with the photos. The goal is to acquire stories about anything in order to have a ornate web of life in a certain part of the world (I am doing this in London). The photos will hopefully induce recollections of previous experiences, either close to what the photograph displays, or completely separate from the image local. 

I want to write a small part on authority. Do the groups that are on Facebook, that are filled with people just talking about memories, have authority in a museum or academic context?

Find my project on Facebook and Flickr:

And my blog on the project: I am looking for critiques on the process of this project, would love the help of anyone willing to give it - www.kingstonknows.weebly.com

Thank you very much for your time and help