Abstract
Let me turn things around for a change and start with the overall assessment of On Media Memory: this anthology is a must-read for everyone interested in the field of media and memory studies. It comprises 20 chapters, some of which were contributed by the most well-known scholars currently working in the field of media and memory studies. The large number of chapters and contributors allows for a wide range of topics to be considered, though, depending on one’s own research interests, one could wish for some to be explored in greater depth. Chapters can be read individually but some have strong thematic ties, allowing for a well-rounded reading experience. On Media Memory is part of Palgrave Macmillan’s Memory Studies Series, edited by Andrew Hoskins and John Sutton.
The book begins with ‘Defining the field of memory studies’, a dense yet rich introduction by Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers an Eyal Zandberg. The editors succeed in nicely structuring the field and simultaneously contextualizing the chapters which follow. They raise guiding questions related to ‘Media memory and agency’ like the issue of authority, defining the collective in ‘collective memory’ and the question of personal/private versus collective/shared memory. A second set of guiding questions outlined in the introduction is concerned with media memory and context. Here, the editors refer to the circumstances of memory work as well as issues around venues and outlets of mediated memory.
The main body of the anthology is then structured into five parts: Part I is on ‘Media Memory: Theory and Methodologies’. Unfortunately, it would go beyond the scope of this review to consider each chapter individually. The chapters mentioned here are intended to be indicative of the wide variety and breadth to be found in this anthology. The first section includes, among contributions by Jill A. Edy, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi and Jérôme Bourdon, a chapter by Barbie Zelizer in which she draws the reader’s attention to the western bias when it comes to news reporting and remembering. In a sharp and succinct analysis, Zelizer argues that non-western news on trauma, crisis and tragedy is often cannibalised, by which Zelizer means minimised, substituted, displaced and transported, that is, placed into another context.
Part II is on ‘Media Memory, Ethics and Witnessing’ and consists of three chapters by Tamar Katriel/Nimrod Shavit, S. Elizabeth Bird and Tamar Ashuri. The latter provides a fascinating case study on the shift which digital media can bring to memory work while simultaneously addressing questions around salience in memories and authority in memory work.
The following section is dedicated to the wide area of ‘Media Memory and Popular Culture’. It includes five chapters written by Paul Frosh, Avner Ben-Amos/Jérôme Bourdon, Na’ama Sheffi, Motti Neiger/Eyal Zandberg/Oren Meyers and José Carlos Rueda Laffond. In his chapter on ‘Television and the imagination of memory: Life on Mars’, Paul Frosh offers an admirably multi-dimensional and multi-layered analysis of the representation of personal and collective memory and loss of memory in a television format.
Carolyn Kitch, Dan Berkowitz, Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Neta Kligler-Vilenchik contributed to Part IV of this anthology entitled ‘Media Memory, Journalism, and Journalistic Practice’. This section consists of very strong chapters that complement each other well. This is particularly the case for the chapter by Tenenboim-Weinblatt on ‘Journalism as an agent of prospective memory’ and the contribution by Kligler-Vilenchik on ‘Memory setting: applying agenda-setting theory to the study of collective memory’. While the latter considers collective memory as a form of agenda-setting, the former approaches agenda-setting as a form of collective memory.
The final section of the anthology focuses on ‘New Media Memory’. It includes work by Anna Reading, Amit Pinchevski, Irit Dekel and Andrew Hoskins. As the chapters in this section show, it is this topic, memory in the new media ecology, which presents scholars with a wealth of questions still to be explored; how will memory work be ‘done’ in a time of continuous connectivity; where and how can we locate the individual and the collective in these dynamic processes; what role do national borders still have to play in this environment; and how do theories and concepts developed in the ‘old’ media ecology apply with regards to memory and mediated life? No doubt these types of questions will guide future scholarship in the field – and I suspect On Media Memory will be a key resource in the process of conceiving new research projects.