Catching fleeting memories: Victim forums as mediated remembering communities

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Abstract

This article examines the potential of the new media to provide space for the voicing of traumatic pasts. Using the example of www.stasiopfer.de, a site dedicated to the victims of persecution in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), I consider the development of remembering communities on the internet. Close textual analysis of a selection of posts reveals the ways in which group belonging is constructed linguistically. The observation of a hybrid language form between orality and textuality, and the staging of temporal immediacy, is linked to the concept of a medial trace that has a structuring impact on the memories produced. I argue that in the case of internet communication part of this medial trace is the ‘catching’ of otherwise evanescent memory, that is, the mediatization of communicative memory. In this way, discussion forums that focus on memory can be described as both part of ‘stored’ cultural memory and mediated remembering communities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)390-403
Number of pages13
JournalMemory Studies
Volume6
Issue number4
Early online date23 May 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2013

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