Negotiating the past in hyperconnected memory cultures: Post-Soviet nostalgia and national identity in Russian online communities

Abstract

This article presents an empirical analysis and theoretical reflections on the negotiation of memories in hyperconnected memory cultures. In order to describe the conditions of memory negotiation, we suggest using the notion of ‘hyperconnected memories’, which refers to the mediatization of memory in a nexus of contingent forms of communication. By conducting a critical discourse analysis (CDA), we show how the Soviet past is negotiated in contemporary Russia and analyse how national identity is discursively constructed alongside official narratives and individual memories. We argue that an important element in this process is nostalgia, which motivates people to join mnemonic online communities but also functions as an intermediary between cultural memory and national identity by making history a personal, sentimental matter. However, we will also demonstrate that the negotiation of official history and individual memory in mnemonic online communities does not automatically lead to emancipation from state-propagated narratives.

The commodification of time and memory: Online communities and the dynamics of commercially produced nostalgia

“…Working across and between research on online communities and digital time and memory offers the opportunity to see nostalgia not only as being part of a mnemonic process but also a social engagement with the present and the future. Kalinina and Menke (2016) made a first step in this direction by focussing on post-soviet nostalgic online communities. Seta G de and Olivotti (2016) tackled the question by analysing online Hong Kong nostalgia.…”

“…Despite this move towards an examination of the processual dimensions of nostalgia, research on online communities expressing nostalgia is scarce (Seta G de and Olivotti, 2016; Kalinina and Menke, 2016). More precisely, there has been a lack of analysis which examines the very specific ways in which the online environment configures the relationship between the processual dynamics of nostalgia which allow for both creative and conservative modes of identification and the commercial exploitation and commodification of the very nostalgia produced and articulated in online communities.…”

‘It’s like the space shuttle blows up every day’: Digital television heritage as memory of European crises in the age of information overload

“…Second, there is a scarcity of research into this kind of cultural memory from the perspective of television as a constellation of dynamic and cross-media storytelling practices (see, for instance, the critique of Kay et al (2015) in Hagedoorn, 2018). Television culture in Europe sits between transnationalism and Euroscepticism: national paradigms still persist, but do so in relation to new global symbolic spaces, developing at a different pace across Europe (De Leeuw, 2017), with new complexities for mediatization and memory negotiation -so-called 'hyperconnected memories' (Kalinina and Menke, 2016). Researchers therefore need to develop methods that include and venture beyond the understanding of practices by public service broadcasters and archival institutions as existing only in local contexts.…”

Du mal du pays aux nostalgies numériques. Réflexions sur les liens entre nostalgie, nouvelles technologies et médias

“…Journal of Communication (2016) analyse la thématique générale de la nostalgie, et divers articles reviennent sur la notion, ses aspects historiques, culturels et communicationnels. Toujours en mettant en avant la nostalgie, mais avec un focus sur les médias et la communication, la revue autrichienne Medien&Zeit publie un numéro spécial (Menke & Schwarzenegger, 2017) et esquisse de nouvelles perspectives empiriques pointant la nécessité de s'intéresser davantage au rôle que joue l'affectif dans les pratiques nostalgiques ainsi que le danger de l'abus politique de ces affects (Kalinina & Menke, 2016).…”

“…Les vagues nostalgiques ne sont pas nouvelles ; chercheuses et chercheurs ou essayistes ont déjà évoqué le phénomène rétromania (Reynolds, 2011), les cycles (Marcus, 2004) et les fièvres (Panati, 1991), mais l'arrivée du web 2.0 -qui est à l'origine de certaines nostalgies et qui offre en même temps de nouvelles possibilités pour les exprimer -a ouvert un nouveau terrain d'analyse riche pour comprendre la 'vague nostalgique' au début du XXI e siècle. Les réseaux socionumériques, par exemple, permettent aux personnes nostalgiques de former des communautés en ligne autour de thématiques spécifiques telles que le regret de l'époque soviétique (Kalinina et Menke, 2016). S'y ajoute la nostalgie exprimée en ligne pour certains médias du passé que Menke (2017) nomme média-nostalgie ou encore celle qui concerne les technologies en tant que telles, la technostalgie (Böhn & Möser, 2010).…”