CEE: “Social Media and Social Memory”

Evgeny Morozov writes about “social media and social memory” – and a Facebook project involving a 22-year-old Lublin resident posing as a 7-year-old Jewish boy who was killed by the Nazis during WWII. Vaviblog (ENG) is a similar project, which “gives voice” to Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov: “…if Vavilov were alive today, he’d be popping into the nearest internet café at every opportunity to share his discoveries with the world.” Another similar project is a pseudo-blog of Hava Volovich (RUS), who was born in 1916 in Ukraine, spent nearly 20 years in the Soviet labor camps and exile, and died in 2000.

3 comments

  • […] their fellow netizens to delete more and hang onto less. (Hat tip Evgeny whose post “Social Media and Social Memory” is worth checking […]

  • Thanks for the mention; if any of your readers would like to contribute to the Vaviblog I would be delighted to hear from them.

  • Could the social memory be a cultural identity basis
    Loyko Olga (Russia)
    Social memory is something that can be easily lost but difficult to restore. A person, who has lost his memory, is simultaneously deprived of social contacts. This is a many-sided problem and needs interdisciplinary research in the field of modern humanities.
    A society ontological identity is based on the relatively stable standard orientations, worked out by the social memory.
    Social memory mental capacity was determined by the general sign ritual field, the basis of which is formed by the cultural archetypes. A modern society ontological safety elimination, which is mentioned in the works of A. Giddens, is accompanied by the personality self-identification loss and gives an impetus to the social memory chaotic condition.
    An existing phenomenological gap between actual forms of social memory objective reality (a myth, archetype, text) leads to the society cultural identity loss.
    Hermeneutical contradictions between social memory identity levels and an adequate correlation ability of the social memory meaning content demonstration identical methods (a ritual, sign, social code) result in the loss of understanding between the society members.
    Social memory mental capacity general field reconstruction, which can actually include an already formed or still forming social groups identity, not profaning but sublimating their self-identity, is an axiological aspect of this problem.
    A logically correct correlation between the revealed concepts, which form the social memory objective reality basis, and cultural identification methods enables to suggest a softer migrants “entry” to values-sense world of the host culture. This is a praxeological aspect.
    A particular problem, the solution for which is being considered in this project, is to analyze identity interconnections as a perfectly conceivable correlation (F. Brentano) and social memory – a general human and society characteristic, which can constantly vary from the absolute reality (the past) and absolute unreality (the future) by means of occasional appeal to the present social codes.
    Namely in this case social memory becomes a sociocultural basis for the society identity.

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