esa bocconi octber_2010_20

Memory of the events and events of the memory: how the Net can change our way of

constructing collective memory

Alessandra Micalizzi

IULM University – Communication dept.

alessandra.micalizzi@iulm.it

Culture and the Making of the Worlds3° ESA mid-term conference – Bocconi University

7th-9th October 2010

Collective memory in Post-orality Age

Device of the memory (Sciolla,2005)

Objectivation of the History

Social Practice (Halbwachs, 1950)

narratives

storage

socialization

processing

Collective memory in Post-orality Age

Manipulating narratives

Role of the media

Circulating narratives

Producing narratives

About:

Public past The Past for the publics (audience)

Collective memory in Post-orality Age

«the Net is a processing space of the networked public opinion, where the cultural citizenship experiences with a personal reflexivity, above all, by conversational dynamics» (Boccia Artieri, 2010)

Internet as:

Narrative technology (Walzer, 2000:2002)

New public arena

Technological memory device (?)

Collective memory of traumatic events

Narratives about traumatic events

Negotiation of confirmative memory (Namer, 1994)

Opportunity to processing and coping trauma

The first coin of exchange in online conversation

The earthquake in Abruzzi: an empirical research

could the Net can be considered as a social and

anthropological environment where negotiating the

collective memory and where processing the

trauma?

Characteristics of digital narratives

Internet websites that hosted the messages

The net-authors of the postsThe main themes proposed

The earthquake in Abruzzi: an empirical research

First step: explorative research on the Net by some keywords

Second step: qualitative content analysis of posts published on the first 5 groups opened on Facebook about the earthquake

Third step: visual analysis of 500 images about the earthquake used as profile photo on Facebook's groups.

Fourth step: e-mail interviews with users

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the results

Institutional space

participated space

Typologies of website

Autonomous space

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the results

Extreme public sphere

Peer to peer public sphere

Semi-public

sphere

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the results

The authors:

Im-mediated (unmediated) witness: people that “attend” the earthquake by media

The victims: people directly involved

The direct witness: journalists, rescuers, abruzzi’s people less involved

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the results

• theme:

Reports: news and neutral reconstruction

Personal experiences: Anecdote Emotion Remembrance

Technical information: about the earthquake

The earthquake in Abruzzi: an empirical research

Do we face with collective memory?

The earthquake in Abruzzi: contextual aspects of paritcipation

First hours after the earthquake

Collective participation

anniversary New shakes

time

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the phases of the processing of collective memory

1.Sedimentation of narratives

2. Processing memory

3. Construction of a Story

4. The risk of oblivious

The earthquake in Abruzzi: an example of digital collective memory

Confirmative memory

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the phases of the processing of collective memory

Chrono-digital narratives:

«micro-fragments that don’t produce a proper ordered narration, but they mix each others giving back a plural and polyedral image, which complexity is very close to the reality, even if the image doesn’t coincides with it»

First level narrative material Source of the collective memory Without order and selection

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the phases of the processing of collective memory

Rememoration seed (Halbwachs, 1950):

The selective process acted by the surfer through the on-line research that is at the same time unique and contingent

The earthquake in Abruzzi: the risk of oblivious

The chrono-digital narratives are:

Searchable and persistent (boyd, 2007)

But at the same time

Ephemeral under the constant risk of oblivious

«We face with a culture that is at the same tima eternal and ephemeral» (Catells, 2000)