Themes for future research on memory, mind and media

Communication Theory, 2013

While memory can be both retrospective and prospective, referring to either what happened or what needs to be done, scholarship on media and collective memory has focused on retrospective memories. Shifting the focus to the news media as agents of prospective memory, this article develops the notion of mediated prospective memory. This new construct, which encompasses the various media practices by which collective prospective-memory tasks are shaped and negotiated, is intended to shed light on one facet of the complex relationships between past, present, and future in news discourse; create a much needed bridge between the theoretical frameworks of agenda setting and collective memory; and provide one possible answer to the question of what is unique about journalism's memory work.

2009

DOI: 10.1177/0022022109335557 2009; 40; 667 originally published online May 14, 2009; Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology Ragini Sen, Orsolya Vincze, Hamdi Muluk, Feixue Wang and Anya Zlobina James H. Liu, Dario Paez, Patrycja Slawuta, Rosa Cabecinhas, Elza Techio, Dogan Kokdemir, and the Nation-State on Dynamics of Collective Remembering Representing World History in the 21st Century: The Impact of 9/11, the Iraq War,

A cursory look at the political map of Europe will show that right of center governments are in power in ex-communist countries like Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. The right is on the rise even in countries with a strong democratic tradition such as France, Austria and the Netherlands. The present paper is trying to elucidate the dynamic by which present political events affect the respective national identities, and by extension collective memories, and which may be responsible for this rightward shift. Collective memory is undistinguishable from group identity. Todorov considers collective memory " not a memory per se, but a discourse that takes place in the public sphere, which reflects the self-image that a society or a group within the society tries to project. " (Author's translation) Collective memory is a consensual convention which allows for the integration of recalled events in a manner consistent with the agreed upon distortions and the rejection of events not consistent with it. At the level of the group, the mechanism equivalent to repression at the individual level, responsible for keeping unwanted content out of awareness, is making the discussion of an unwanted subject impossible in the public sphere. This is achieved by the re-positioning of the Overton window for that particular subject. In turn, the characteristics of the public sphere are determined by the type of liberty the society is based on, namely positive or negative (Berlin) and by whether it occurs in an open or closed society (Bergson). Two forces described by Barber, one of transnational integration and homogenization (McWorld) and one of increased fragmentation and tribalism (Jihad) also play a significant role in defining the public sphere. Several shared distortion mechanisms: self-deception, truthiness, poetic truth,

2014

In this paper, I use Jewish Israeli attitudes and emotions towards the Palestinian narrative of the 1948 war to study the connection between collective memory and readiness for reconciliation. In Palestinian collective memory, this war is viewed as the Nakba, a calamitous event. In the collective memory of Israeli Jews, however, the 1948 War of Independence represents a dream come true after 2,000 years of oppression and persecution. A public opinion survey was conducted to examine Jewish Israeli attitudes towards a possible official acknowledgment of the Palestinian collective memory of the Nakba. The survey reveals that disapproval of such acknowledgment is strongly connected to a lack of empathy for the other side's sufferings, as well as to fear for the existence of Israel, rooted in Jewish collective memory. The survey also shows that the strength of tolerance (intolerance) for the other side's narrative is highly correlated with the extent to which the respondents identify with the political ideology of the left (right). The same conclusions are reached by a follow-up study of the attitudes and actions of politicians from opposing ends of Israel's political spectrum (left and right). Since in Israel the more left wing citizens and politicians are, the greater their willingness to make concessions required for a peace agreement, the survey indicates that ability to accept and tolerate the other side's collective memory reflects readiness for reconciliation. My main conclusion is that the extent to which Israelis accept and express empathy to Palestinian collective memory and historical narratives reveals emotional readiness for reconciliation and the compromises it requires.

europhd.eu

Following open-ended methodology used in an earlier research by Liu et al., social representations of world history were assessed among university student samples in 12 countries: China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, East Timor, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Spain, and Portugal. Findings confirmed that across cultures, transcending boundaries of political ideology, civilization age, or youthful statehood. (a) World history is represented as a story about politics and warfare, with World War II the most important event in history and Hitler its most influential individual. (b) Recency effects are pervasive in young adults’ collective remembering, with events and figures from the past 100 years accounting for 72% and 78% of nominations on average. (c) Representations were primarily Eurocentric, with events and figures in Western societies accounting for 40% of nominations overall, but this is tempered by nationalism, especially in the prevalence of local heroes instrumental to the founding of the current state. The representational hegemony of the victorious Western powers of World War II is being challenged by negative evaluations of the American presidency following 9/11 (September 9) and the Iraq War, with George Bush Jr. perceived as more negative than Hitler in four out of six samples where they were both nominated as important. Results are interpreted within a theoretical framework of history and identity, where collective remembering of the past is dynamically interlinked to political issues of the present.

Memory Studies, 2021

Recently, researchers have endeavored to extend cultural perspectives of collective remembering by examining communicative or living historical memory (collective memories that emerge from informal communication between ordinary people). The current study examined the content and subjective evaluation of living historical memory from open-ended nominations of historical events provided by samples from 39 societies. Results showed that Western societies were dominated by living memories of terrorism, reflecting a distinctly negative climate. By contrast, many developing societies displayed a more positive climate in living memory that was rooted in events related to their nation’s foundation. The current study opens up avenues for conceptualizing the role of collective remembering in shaping emotional climates that influence (or may be part of) national political culture.

Call for Papers, 2024

Collective memory, one might plausibly argue, often plays an important role in politics and society. Such claims are by now commonplace in scholarly as well as political discourses. Indeed, the term collective memory has become a powerful symbol of the many political and social transitions currently under way, though there is also something broadly epochal about our seemingly pervasive interest in memory. New regimes seek ways to settle the residues of their predecessors, while established systems face a rise in historical consciousness and increasingly pursue a politics of regret. According to Benedict Anderson , the nation, and every other group, in particular ethnic group, is imaged (but not invented) community: it is imaged because a member of a large group never will meet all members of a group, but they in her/his consciousness are there and it takes a certain kind of friendly relationship toward to them. This type of relationship is based on a sense of a strong horizontal friendship and solidarity. Communities differ themselves primarily on the way of how they are imaged". Collective memories are memories shared by a group that influence their identity as a community. Studies tend to focus on either the choice of the past (how memory agents mobilize the past) or the weight of the past (how the past affects the individual or the group). A “sociomental topography” implies a pronouncedly cognitive focus, and looks at how the past is registered and organized in our minds. Therefore, a researcher is primarily interested not in what actually happened in history, but in how we remember it. Many experiences are truly forgotten and not everything that occurs is recorded in our mind.

Neohelicon, 2007

Using the Russian experience in World War II as an illustration, this article explores some dynamics of collective memory, especially when state authorities seek to employ a particular usable past. Posters, films, and other forms of popular culture are analyzed in an attempt to account for a sudden switch in official Soviet memory during the early phases of World War II. In this context the Soviet leadership reverted to relying on old Russian national narratives after spending years forcibly promulgating an internationalist, anti-nationalist official story. Along with other post-Soviet experience, this suggests that national narratives can be quite conservative and resistant to change. The notion of "schematic narrative templates" is employed to provide insight into how this played out in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia in general, with specific attention given to the "expulsion of foreign enemies" narrative template.