Digital remembrance: Honouring Srebrenica genocide victims via #ŠtoTeNema

Abstract

This article aims to track and tackle the #ŠtoTeNema hashtag to analyse the meanings generated by Twitter end-users who employed #ŠtoTeNema together with other hashtags, texts, visuals, hyperlinks, and metadata. ŠTO TE NEMA (Why are you not here?) first appeared as an alternative commemorative practice (in 2006) to remember the victims of the Srebrenica genocide (1995). In 2012, the #ŠtoTeNema hashtag emerged to commemorate human loss on Twitter and provide even more comprehensive access to this space of memory and suffering. Using multimodal discourse analysis, I examine how Aida Šehović, the artist behind ŠTO TE NEMA, with her team and Twitter's end-users, portrayed the Srebrenica genocide by employing #ŠtoTeNema. I argue that ŠTO TE NEMA has become an influential and recognisable representation of the Srebrenica genocide not only on-site but also online. This research concludes that #ŠtoTeNema gained momentum during the global pandemic peak (2020), creating inclusive access to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the genocide locally, regionally, and transnationally.