Abstract
Journalism is seeped in memory, and vice versa. Yet, perhaps because its relationship with history has been so intrinsic (it is hard to imagine historical recovery occurring without it), there have been few conscious undertakings that focus on how journalism as an industry and practice might affect the ways in which societies remember events. Published as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s memory series, Journalism and Memory is a rich addition to research on memory studies – a growing field which the editors argue has, until now, not included serious examination of the role journalism might play in the formation of collective memory. This 2014 collected volume includes several reflections and studies on this topic, ranging from the legitimizing ways in which television journalists are commemorated (Matt Carlson and Daniel A. Berkowitz) to the coverage of the generational memories being unearthed in Argentinean truth trials (Susana Kaiser). Its aim is to provoke future researchers to consider journalism as much more than a ‘first rough draft of history’.
Edited by Barbie Zelizer, from the Annenberg School for Communication, and Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the book reflects their geographical locations, with most of the chapters referencing the United States. Despite this, the collection does not feel narrow in its focus, and the inclusion of leading names in the field (such as Ingrid Volkmer and Michael Schudson) has resulted in thought-provoking and in-depth content.
Divided into four parts, Trajectories of Journalism and Memory, Domains of Journalism and Memory, Journalism and Visual Memory, and Journalism and Institutional Memory, the book makes a distinction between journalism and media and seeks to correct the neglect of journalism in memory discussions.
Part I provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on journalism, media and memory, making a convincing case for revising work on memory to take account of journalism’s role and also for considering the role that memory plays in journalistic practice (which scholars typically limit to the ‘here-and-now’ instead of the ‘there-and-then’ (Zelizer, 2008, p. 80)). While Barbie Zelizer and Jeffrey K. Olick map the current terrain in both discourses (as well as areas that have been forgotten), other contributors ask some urgent questions about the implications of our rapidly changing and globalized mediascape for collective memory research. Will we see the creation of ‘memory silos’ in a post-broadcast world, asks Jill A. Edy; if so, what will this mean for collective decision-making?
Part II tracks the various commonplace ways in which journalism uses, references, counts and keeps time in its received codes and conventions, particularly its narrative structures and deictic language. Schudson’s highly readable account of the routine practices in which journalism acts as a ‘keeper of non-commemorative memory’ (p. 85) examines – in insightful detail – a selection of everyday newspaper articles, concluding that journalism acts as a carrier of cultural memory in three ways: by appealing to the past to emphasize the newness of news, by referencing history to provide explanatory context for the present and by reporting on subjects’ own time-invoking activities (i.e. their own sense of time remembered).
Tenenboim-Weinblatt also focuses on time in journalism, particularly the mnemonic practice of counting time as it occurs in reporting on kidnapping and captivity, concluding that this as an overlooked but enabling journalistic resource.
Using Israel’s ‘Holocaust Day’ as a case study, Motti Neigher, Eyal Zandberg and Oren Meyers’ chapter reflects on commemorative practices, pointing to the ways in which journalists identify and make use of ‘memory carriers’ in commemorative journalism, which typically involves a strategy of ‘reversed memory’ (i.e. locating the ‘then-and-there’ in the ‘here-and-now’). The authors make a strong case for further investigation into the political implications of this practice, asking ‘[w]hen exactly is a past event socially understood to be over? When does the past become a settled account? A done deal?’ (p. 125). The chapter provides a useful framework for future research in this area.
Part III of the book is devoted to photography and visual memory. Robert Hariman and John Luis Lucaites make the important point that unlike written accounts of history – journalism’s ‘first drafts’ – photographs remain unchanging: ‘You cannot take a photograph of the past’ (p. 131). Perhaps because of this, visuals have long been recognized as holding immense mnemonic power. This section includes some fascinating work on the ways in which journalistic visuals (particularly images of war) function as aides-memoire and powerful symbolic metonyms.
Contributors in this section respond to Edy’s call for research into the implications of our rapidly changing media ecology for memory. Kari Andén-Papadopulos’ chapter focuses on ‘the move towards more participatory forms of witnessing’ (p. 152). Using cell phone–captured footage of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death in Iran as a case study, she concludes that ‘citizen-created footage can bring profound changes in the power of political representation’ (p. 159), although this power is currently unstable on account of journalism’s lack of an ethical framework for dealing with such visuals.
Similarly, Anna Reading looks at new practices of ‘assembling’ imagery in the age of social media, showing how reporters’ intersection with microbloggers and Twitter worked to override the US government’s attempts to downplay or create a ‘non-memory’ of the 2011 news of the shooting of Osama Bin Laden.
While Part III of the book undoubtedly had the potential to bring together the most fascinating insights into journalism’s relationship with memory, it seemed at times as if the theme of memory had been added to existing research on journalism rather than evolving from a primary inquiry into the dynamic between the two. The final chapter in this section is an exception in this regard. Andrew Hoskins’ research into the visual memory of war in photojournalism references both journalism and memory equally, arguing that even in today’s ‘post-scarcity’ culture – which should allow for greater variety – visuals of war remain haunted, and limited, by the images of past conflicts.
The final part turns to journalism as an institution, and the chapters in this section take a longer view of events, with strong reflections on the relationship between American legacies (such as the Gettysburg address) and changing journalistic cultures.
Too often, edited volumes bring together overly disparate (or sometimes repetitive) pieces of writing, with a select few chapters serving the interests of different readers. That is not the case here; instead, helped by a strong introduction and epilogue, the chapters build on, reference and speak to one another to create a cohesive and enriching read, meaning that the book will work well for any postgraduate course of study on memory and will prove especially fascinating to scholars engaging with the media’s interaction with memory. This is not the definitive tome on journalism’s memory work, and nor could it be, as there is still too much research to be done in the area. There will undoubtedly be readers for whom the book does not focus sufficiently on either journalism or memory, but by bringing these two seemingly unrelated themes together, Journalism and Memory achieves its aim admirably: to provoke new and exciting ways of thinking about the overlooked relationship between the two.