Record and remember: Memory and meaning-making practices through mobile media

Abstract

Mobile media have the potential to affect how one remembers and exercises the past as they offer new and creative ways to record and document the current. These new ways of preserving the past could be in the form of sharing locational information (e.g., geotagging, camera phone photos, check-ins), which would remind our future selves where we come from and how we used to be. We sometimes consciously create our everyday life narratives intending to hang onto a moment, or simply because the technology automatically saves our experiences, we unconsciously preserve our pasts. Mobile media can contribute to the existing ways of narrating places and the self because locational information can communicate multiple and different aspects of places. Situating our analysis within the broader literature on memory and media, we draw on three different studies conducted in the UK and the US in order to analyze different uses of mobile media in remembering associations with places, past experiences, and creating a nostalgic sense of place. More specifically we draw on notions of memory work and mediated memories to explore the mutual shaping of media, place, and memory.

Keywords

Memory mobile media nostalgia place remembering

The advent of digital media opened up new ways not only for storing, archiving, and sharing our experiences, but they also changed—at least for some, to some extent—how we remember and exercise things in the past. These transformations have attracted attention especially from scholars of memory studies and media studies, focusing on the role of digital media in autobiographical and collective memory (Garde-Hansen, 2011; Kuhn, 1995, 2000, 2010; Pentzold & Sommer, 2011; van Dijck, 2004, 2007). On the other hand, mobile communication research has largely left the relationship between mobile media and memory unexplored (with the exceptions of Frith and Kalin, in press; and Green, 2009). Instead, mobile communication research has extensively explored the role of place and mobile media as well as the presentation of self and places through location-based social networking (e.g., de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012; de Souza e Silva & Sutko, 2009; Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011; Humphreys, 2007; Humphreys & Liao, 2011; Wilken & Goggin, 2012). We seek to help fill this gap by exploring the connections between mobile media, place, and memory.

Therefore in this paper, we analyse the role that mobile media play in inscribing, saving the present, and reinterpreting the past by analysing locative media practices. Situating our analysis within the broader literature on memory, remembering, place, and media (e.g. Casey, 2000; Kuhn, 1995, 2000; Lowenthal, 1985; Ricoeur, 2004; van Dijck, 2004), we draw on three different studies conducted in the UK and the US, examining the practices and motivations surrounding mobile media. In total we draw on qualitative data from over 83 mobile media users in order to analyse different uses of locational information in remembering associations with places, past experiences, and creating a nostalgic sense of place. Based on the memory literature, we sought to understand what role mobile media play as tools of remembering and memory-making in defining and shaping our understanding of our selves and our spatial encounters. In order to answer this question, we focus on the significance of place and spatial practices in memory and meaning-making.

Literature

Memory

Memory is not a static object we merely recall or possess, but an active process of situating ourselves in relation to our past (Kuhn, 2000). Memory can allow us to recall our experiences, as well as examine and use them for various purposes (Walker & Skowronski, 2013). Memory is inherently reflective. “To remember (se souvenir de) something is at the same time to remember oneself (se souvenir de soi)” (Ricouer, 2004, p. 3). This is not to say that memories are only personal; indeed there is a strong literature distinguishing history and personal memory from collective memory (Halbwachs, 1980; Nora, 1989). Collective memory literature highlights the socially constructive and performative nature of memory.

Memory is the activity and product of remembering. Kuhn (2000) introduces the concept of “memory work” to convey the active social practice that memory entails. Memory work is defined as “an active practice of remembering that takes an inquiring attitude toward the past and the activity of its (re)construction through memory” (Kuhn, 2010, p. 6). It is both the creation and unearthing of memories. Thus we use the concept of memory work to explore mobile media use.

Memory and media

Media such as photographs and films have long been understood as holders of memories. Memory relies on “the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image” (Kuhn, 1995, p. 13). However, the representations of those images can vary and thus, they can be reinterpreted. We cannot access the past in any unmediated form (Kuhn, 1995). “[M]emory can be articulated through a wide range of media and contexts” (Kuhn, 2000, p. 189). Through memory work, we can renew a sense and meaning of a past experience or event; and the practices of mediation can affect how we remember the past.

Van Dijck (2007) extends Kuhn’s work on memory to various kinds of media, suggesting the mutual shaping of all media and memory. “Media and memory, however, are not separate entities—the first enhancing, corrupting, extending replacing the second—but media invariably and inherently shape our personal memories, warranting the term ‘mediation’” (p. 16). Media are at once aids for memory, but also they shape memory. We want to extend this notion of mutual shaping of media and memory to create a triadic framework that includes place.

Memory and place

The relationship between place and memory is highly intertwined. Places, like media, are “containers of memory” (Kuhn, 2002, p. 16). Places hold memories for us (Nora, 1989). Our memories of experiences are indeed place-specific (Casey, 2000). It is often place, rather than time, that comes to mind when we recall and remember our experiences (Casey, 2000). Indeed, remembering might be conceived as “an activity of re-implacing: re-experiencing past places” (Casey, 2000, p. 201). The more memories are tied to places, the more powerful they become (Bachelard, 1969/1994). “To be placeless in one’s remembering is not only to be disoriented; it is to be decidedly disadvantaged with regard to what a more complete mnemonic experience might deliver” (Casey, 2000, p. 184).

Physically, places are sometimes deliberately created to hold memories, such as archives or museums (Nora, 1989). On a metaphorical level, memory is not only placed, but it can also be thought of as a place we go. “Memory, too, is a topos in its own right: it is a place we revisit, or to which we are transported … To this extent, memory not only has a topography, it is a topography” (Kuhn, 2002, pp. 16–17). Like a place from our childhood that we occasionally revisit, memories (of places) are dominated by emotional connections such as nostalgia. Indeed “One of the most eloquent testimonies to place’s extraordinary memorability is found in nostalgia” (Casey, 2000, p. 201).

In 1688, Johannes Hofer coined the term “nostalgia” to explain a medical diagnosis of extreme homesickness (Davis, 1979). The Greek word, nostos means “return to home” (Davis, 1979) or “return to native land” (Lowenthal, 1985). Lowenthal (1985) argues that today the term nostalgia has become a cover-all term used to depict the whole past, which is widely commercialized. Indeed nostalgia today is often thought of as both negative and positive in its emotional evocation (Eyles, 1985). For the purposes of our analyses, we want to reclaim the relationship between nostalgia and place, whereby, nostalgia as a form of memory work is dominated by an affective experience of a place.

Methodology

In order to understand the role that mobile media play in everyday life and social and spatial interactions among urbanites, we conducted three studies with the users of smartphones and feature mobile phones; two in the UK and one in the US, in the years 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively. The ultimate aim for conducting these three separate studies was not specifically to investigate the practices of remembering and memory, but to analyze practices of place-making through mobile media and locational information use. We frame locational information use within the broader understanding of location-awareness including not only explicit ways of using location (such as location-based applications, mobile status updates, or activities of checking-in), but also implicit ways of locational information sharing such as sending camera phone photos that reveal location (Özkul, 2015).

For the two studies in the UK (London) two different methodologies were used; 27 in-depth interviews and seven focus groups. The project in the US involved recruiting mobile social network users from several metropolitan areas including Boston, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, among others. For the study in the US, in total we conducted 18 semistructured in-depth interviews with the location-based application Foursquare mayors. During the analysis, we found that a common theme emerged: use of locational information in practices of memory-making and remembering, which we believe to be one of the main motivations to share locational information.

Findings

Through our explorations of urban place-making practices and mobile media, we found evidence of various kinds of remembering and memory-making that intertwined with locational information use in both the US and UK studies. Overall our findings can be divided along several key axes, which reveal different aspects of memory work: memory-making and place, memory and place-making, and nostalgic use.

Memory-making and place

The mobility and ubiquity of mobile technology facilitated its ability to serve as recording devices and memory makers, just like cameras and diaries. Many participants in our studies described using mobile media to create an archive of the places while making memories of those places on the go. In particular, the camera phone feature was an important way through which participants recorded and archived where they were. In this way, the mobile media, whether it be a Foursquare check-in or a camera phone photo, became tools for memory-making.

I check it constantly because I import all of my check-ins to my Google calendar so it becomes a diary … it’s mostly places that I’d want to remember that I was at, since that’s sort of how I use the service now. (Joseph, Milwaukee)

* * *

I do use it as a sort of visual diary. Whether I do something or go somewhere quite often I do take a picture of random things, which I post on Facebook as a little diary. (Irene, London)

For these participants the mobile media became a way to hold or keep information about the places they went, creating mediated memories of the places they go. “Mediated memories are material triggers for future recall—produced through media technologies, whether pencil or camera” (van Dijck, 2007, p. 39). Participants varied as to whether or not they shared their mobile media traces through social media or email, but most used them as a way to preserve the past or the moment. The recording, storing, and occasional sharing (if only for a future self) of such locational information was a valuable asset to our participants.

“Memory is not mediated by media, but media and memory transform each other” (van Dijck, 2007, p. 21). Throughout the studies there was evidence of the mutual shaping of memory and media through place. Several participants described not only storing traces of places on their phones, but also described when and how they would recount, or even edit memories.

Like say you’re going on a trip, I like to kind of use Foursquare as a method of looking back. So I’m able to look at that because I delete tips and photos and stuff, but if I don’t have time, at least I can check in and then go back later in the history and look at it. (Howard, Atlanta)

Users of mobile media can sometimes add locational information to their blogs via their smartphones to share their memories with their followers. Interestingly, they may later search their own blogs to remember those places:

It is augmented memory. I like to blog and I like to share useful things around with people, but I also search my own blog to search for information on places that I have been before. (Jason, London)

Many participants described looking at previous mobile traces of their locations. The mobile media facilitated their ability to “look back” and remember where they had been before. Memory work is not only about creating mediated memories but also the active process of engaging with those memories as well. As participants engage in the searching of old check-ins or blog entries for places they have been, their practices highlight the ways mobile media allow them to keep memories of places, which are themselves containers of memories. The editing and deleting of social and locational information on Foursquare and blogs demonstrates the ways that mediated memories are never static, but actively engaged with and encountered.

Sometimes memories of places on mobile media are quite utilitarian and functional. In these cases, place and memory become inexorably tied as places stand in for activities. Check-ins can become memory holders for events and experiences that need to be recalled at later points in time, not to reexperience or relive but to make current decisions on.

[I check in] pretty much every time I go out, even if I’m running errands I check in unless it’s something I don’t want to share with people like a doctor’s office visit or something. I still check in on those occasions, I just check in off the grid so it’s kind of like a log for myself I can go back and see, like, when did I go to the doctor. (Natalie, New York)

Participants like Natalie use their Foursquare check-ins to hold their memories to be called upon at a later point in time. These were not emotionally driven check-ins but utilitarian to facilitate remembering, so you know when to book your next check-up or car’s oil change. The place and technology together facilitate a memory-making that stores information about people and their experiences to be acted upon later.

Indeed some participants reflected on the attributes of mobile media that led to their archival and memory-making nature.

You tend to document more. In the past where you may forget to pick up the camera [sic]. Now if you’re having a coffee with a friend somewhere, you have that mobile application. (Lillian, London)

The ready-at-hand nature of mobile devices facilitates their ability to document and keep memories for participants. While mobile media may facilitate the sharing of place-based communication, for some participants, the ability to share or transmit such memories via the mobile was less important than the documenting and memory-making nature of the devices.

Sometimes the memory-making function of mobile media is not active but passive. Increasingly mobile media will automatically track locational information. While explaining how his smartphone automatically geotagged his photos and how he later used that locational information to remember what had happened when he was inebriated, one of the participants highlighted this aspect of locational information use as a preservation and memory-making tool:

I did take all those pictures. I did not realise I took them, well I cannot remember while I took them and when I got back to it the next day, looking through it at work, I found these things that I have no idea what they were, or why I took them. But because it geotags all the time of the pictures, I have a little line of Christmas. (Mark, London)

The location-aware features of Mark’s phone allowed him to track the places he went, but would not remember. The next day, he was able to map out the places he had been to through the geotags on his photos and piece together a narrative of his night out in London. The automatic or passive production of memory objects through mobile media can facilitate the active process of memory work through remembering. “Memory work involves production of objects—in this case snapshots and video footage—with a double purpose: to document and communicate what happened. These items also portend future recall” (van Dijck, 2007, p. 5). Additionally, memory work involves not only the production of these objects or “mediated memories” but also the consumption or reading of such objects in recreating previous place-based experiences.

The mobility of these devices as well as the information gathered through them can facilitate their memory-making abilities; however, this mobility can also lead to loss of memories. Two participants reflected losing their mobile devices or access to locational services equated to losing their memories. For example, Susie (London) described feeling stressed if she were to lose her mobile device because it held so many memories through photos and just information: “Argh! It would be awful.” Another participant actually lost his mobile locational data, which he had been keeping on a Google map:

Saving places on Google Maps—all my memories died with that map when I lost that map. (Billy, London)

For Billy, losing his map was the same as losing his memories. Mobile media both create and instantiate memory objects, which can be lost.

“Memory objects apparently carry an intense material preciousness, although their nominal economic value is negligible. The loss of these items is often equated to the loss of identity, of personal history inscribed in treasured shoebox contents” (van Dijck, 2007, p. 35). While much research has noted the stress or fear that people feel upon losing or misplacing their mobile phones (e.g., Bianchi & Phillips, 2005; Ling, 2004), these findings help to explain that it may not just be the lack of connectivity that causes concern from losing such a device, but as memory is outsourced to mobile technologies, their loss also poses concerns of memory loss as well.

Memory and place-making

Cresswell (2004) argues that a space becomes a place when it has social meaning. For many of our participants, checking in to new places was a way of place-making or creating social and personal meanings with a new city. Chronicling and sharing their locations through mobile social networks allowed some of the participants to create a memory and begin to build a sense of connection and familiarity to a new place.

I enjoy checking in to new locations—almost like I’m claiming, you know, it’s kind of like putting a flag on the moon so to speak. The idea is you can do something interesting. [Checking in] allows you to kind of hold on to places that you really enjoyed. (John, Honolulu)

* * *

It is like a list. Places visited, tick. Like I have been here, here, and here! Because I am going to leave soon. So when I go back home, it is a good way for me to say “I know London!” (Jane, London)

As newcomers to a city, checking in to places starts to transform the city from unfamiliar to familiar by inscribing their experiences onto the city. Lowenthal (1985) asserts that the past is not only recalled in what one sees, “[I]t is incarnate in what we create. Familiarity makes surroundings comfortable; hence we keep memorabilia and add new things whose decor evokes the old” (p. 39). As participants like John and Jane check in to new places, they are creating a connection and a memory with these places. In doing so, they imbibe the space with social meaning.

Sometimes what makes one place more special than the others is not all about the place itself or the memories of the place, but the binding of persons and places in memory. As Zerubavel (2003) argues, “as we keep moving through life from one place to another, the various mementos we carry with us make it, somehow, much easier to maintain the continuity between our past and present selves” (p. 44). For participants in our studies, photos taken with mobile devices were common ways to connect people, places, and memory; and were used as means of aligning the past and present, presenting a continuous self (Zerubavel, 2003, p. 53). Often such photographs did not include locational information, but information about the place. For some, the meanings conveyed through visual representation could be deeper than attaching geo-locational information to the photos. For example, Josh described sharing pictures of places he goes without trying to convey his location:

Sometimes it is quite nice to tweet a picture which is quite ambiguous of where you are, no location at all. Just a little snippet of a tree or park full of leaves. I mean I am not tagging anything, I have not tweeted any words, it is literally just a picture. That’s what I see and that’s what sums up where I’ve just been. (Josh, London)

Josh described using mobile media to capture location-less places, that is, places that are not defined by their longitude or latitude but by their beauty, meaning, and experiential nature. Such photos represent a highly subjective and personalized experience of a place. The location-less places that our participants described capturing with their mobile phones topoanalytically suggests an aesthetic and cultural value. As people use their mobile devices to archive such personal experiences of places, they engage simultaneously in both place-making and memory-making.

Memory and place-making have a subjective dimension, closely connected to the social self. One of the most common ways of preserving the image of the social self was through photographs. As argued by Bærenholdt et al. (2004, p. 105), “through photography practices, people strive to make fleeting experiences a lasting part of their life-narrative.” Similarly, participants discussed how they use smartphones and their location-aware camera features in creating their life narratives as well as creating a feeling of nearness with others.

Participants in the studies recounted wanting to share a moment or experience with others not present at the place. This not only demonstrates notions of connected presence (Licoppe, 2004), but relies on memory and place-making in several ways. First, people remember their social connections to others. As one of the participants describes, part of sharing her locations with friends from home was to make them feel closer to her. “It makes things seem much closer than they are” (Helena, London). To share such information means first to remember friends and loved ones before one can bring distant others closer through sharing one’s location. Similarly, another respondent describes how she and her boyfriend will engage in connected presencing.

Sometimes, with the boyfriend, we send pictures of what we are doing to each other rather than just texting. Just send a picture, “Here I am” or “here is this” or something funny. You know we see it as a way of sharing life. I went to Kingsley Hall yesterday, sort of 60s event. I took a picture of the audience and the hall and sent that to say “where I am.” It is a moment. Moment, yes. I hate losing anything. One thing about digital, it is not as easy as to lose [sic]. (Irene, London)

Photographs not only fix the fleeting moments of life, but also provide nearness to others and to our memories (Bærenholdt et al., 2004). Not only did Irene want to share special moments with her boyfriend but she also didn’t want to lose a memory of the moment. Taking the photo and sending it to her boyfriend not only reinforces her experiences of the moment, it creates new memory traces of the moment as she both photographs it and then shares it.

Nostalgia and locative media

Nostalgia is a feeling of emotional connection with the past. The object of nostalgia is the past, however, it is not a product of the past, but it emerges from the present (Davis, 1979). That said, nostalgia can be facilitated through mobile media practices. “We are nostalgic primarily about particular places that have been emotionally significant to us and which we now miss: we are in pain (algos) about a return home (nostos) that is not presently possible” (Casey, 2000, p. 201).

Places play a crucial role as the meanings assigned to them can form a ground for memories and trigger nostalgic feelings. Values, memories, dreams, and anxieties are affective states that sculpt the experience of a place (Trigg, 2012). As Casey argues (2000, p. 215), having been in places is therefore a natural resource for remembering our own being in the world. Thus we come to know “what we are now” in terms of where we were then. Several of our participants reflected on using mobile media when triggered by a nostalgic sense to places they visited. For example, Kristen would often check in to places that were old favourites from her past.

I noticed when I started going back to my parents’ house, I would always check in when we go out for dinner to the place that we always would go. I feel like I’m more likely to check in to something either new and unusual, or something that feels familiar and has that nostalgic feeling to it. (Kristen, Fort Meyers)

Checking in to places not only gave Kristen a way to reinforce fond feelings from her past, but also played an important part of her identity performance through mobile media (Humphreys, 2008). While Kristen enjoyed checking in to these nostalgic places, her experience of these places may have changed. While a few participants noted checking in to nostalgic places from their past, more common was a sense of nostalgia would trigger people to check in to places.

Emotional connections to places previously known can resurface as people encounter new places. Cresswell (2004) argues that when one moves to any given new place, one transforms that place into a familiar place with the personal belongings, which in turn reflects the identity of both the place and oneself (and one’s past). Therefore, finding resemblances between two different cities can trigger nostalgic feelings from the past while transforming the new place into a familiar place and sharing the locational information of those places strengthens the connections with both places.

For example, those participants who moved to London from abroad or from different cities within UK recounted finding similar aspects of London with other cities and purposefully checking in to those places that reminded them of their hometowns.

Thames is very important in London. I was born in China. My hometown in China is also centred by a river, the Han river. I think a river is the centre and the spirit of a city. I try to recall my memory about London. (Sophie, London)

For Sophie, associating the river Thames with the river Han in her hometown in China was important in the sense that she would then recall her memories of both London and her hometown. Another respondent, Sally, also mentioned that Piccadilly Circus in London reminds her of Times Square in New York, and this contributes to why she checks in there:

Piccadilly Circus because it reminds me of NY where I used to live … because of the billboards and everything. (Sally, London)

Both Sally and Sophie check in to places that remind them of home. Recognizing resemblances between the river Thames and the river Han, and of the Piccadilly Circus and the Times Square depends on nostalgic memories of these places. In this regard, finding something spatially or geographically similar in any given city can be considered bringing past experiences and memories along where one goes. Hence, it creates a sense of nostalgia and provides personal meaning for them within a new place.

Reviewing previous locational information can also give people a sense of nostalgia. Several participants reflected on the nostalgic and emotional aspect of reliving experiences when looking over old mobile media traces. Fond memories and warm feelings are the reason why some of the participants went back to their smartphones to relive past places and people, especially by going through old check-ins and photos:

It’s definitely just like any social media history, it makes you a little bit nostalgic. I remember when I first moved to New York. You’re the place I went to first. And it’s embarrassing if you check-in at a pizza place at 4 a.m. … So it’s just curiosity, “Where was I last year at this time?” I do like that it’s kind of a history of where you’ve been. But I’ve definitely gone back and looked at old tweets and things from location-based services. Those are a little nostalgic. If it’s a memory, it’s nostalgic for sure. (Rachel, New York)

* * *

You know I am a very visual person so.… Those little photographs are just slight little bubbles of memories that come up. (Irene, London)

Some of our participants reflected on the emotional aspects of reliving their mediated memories through their mobile media traces. Nostalgic reliving of the past through mobile mediated traces can be fraught with emotion. Whether positive or negative in valence, nostalgia can also be seen as “an intra-personal expression of self, which subjectively provides one with a sense of continuity” (Wilson, 2005, p. 19).

Discussion

As mobile media are increasingly appropriated into our everyday lives, they become important tools for creating and reflexively engaging with our memories and places. Mobile traces emerge from camera phones, locative applications, and mobile social media use and allowed our participants to engage in memory work to preserve their past. Such mobile media also became sources of nostalgic feelings in and of themselves, thus representing van Dijck’s (2007) notion of the mutual constitution of media and memory as mediated memories. However, for mobile media users, place was also mutually constituted within and through their mediated memories.

It was not only the location of things and people that mattered to participants, but also the nostalgic elements hidden under these traces. The meanings of our social and spatial experiences are changeable and dependent on the present self. Therefore, what we remember and how we remember it can change according to our current situation. By remembering to check in or share experiences about a place through mobile social media, participants created what Frith and Kalin (in press) refer to as digital network archives. Creating such an archive is but one of the elements of the process of memory work.

To remember a place means much more than remembering the location. To remember a place means to remember and exercise oneself and one’s feelings, events, and experiences in the past. For our participants, these were perceived characteristics about a place, their social relationships related to that place, and their activities within the place. Used this way, locational information can contribute to feelings about certain places, which are shaped by past events (Özkul & Gauntlett, 2014). “Memory is inherently linked to the ability of humans to give meaning to their experiences” (Walker & Skowronski, 2013, p. 150). Therefore, mobile media such as camera phones, geotagging or check-in services can promote memory work by allowing participants to inscribe a place with temporal and social meaning.

Memories of places contributed to our participants’ experiences of a city. The creation, retrieval, and display of mobile media traces seemed to increase participants’ attachment to places and familiarity with new places. By sharing the locational information, one could easily establish a personal relationship with the place, and what that place might mean when others see that information. Nostalgia and remembering usually were positive feelings and emotions triggered by a place for our participants, but also contributed to place attachment. Hence users of mobile media can form attachment to places by feeling local and empowered while navigating in a city, by inscribing their memories related to places they have been, and discovering new aspects of places that might had gone unnoticed before (Özkul, 2015). Sharing their own associations and experiences with places in a city through mobile media further reinforced the relationship between media, memory, and place.

By deciding what to share and what not to share about a specific place, participants not only communicate a different aspect of place-making (i.e., choosing to check-in at this place, but not that place), but also present a past, present, and imaginable self. Mediated memories are important identity markers for the past, present, and future audiences, including the future self. In current literature on the use of location-aware technologies, it is well accepted that “location has become an important piece of personal and spatial identity construction” (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012, p. 163). Our study reveals not only similar place-based identity work through mobile media, but also suggests the interplay with memory and the construction of self. Mobile identity work was not solely produced through the sharing of locative communication (e.g., check-ins, photos, etc.), but through the consumption of mobile media as well such as scrolling through old check-ins or camera phone photos.

The locational aspects of mobile media can also create a topographical memory, emphasizing important aspects of places and how they communicate different aspects of the self as in Bachelard’s (1969/1994) “topoanalysis.” According to Bachelard, the self can be discovered through an investigation of places it inhabits, which he refers to as “topophilia” (the love of place) and “topoanalysis” (the investigation of place; as cited in Malpas, 1999, p. 5). Thus looking back at one’s traces of mobile media, as some of our participants described, becomes a means of critically reflecting on and understanding oneself. Like psychoanalysis, topoanalysis becomes a lens through which to understand things about ourselves that we may not even be aware of (Bachelard, 1969/1994).

Mobile media can preserve the past in the form of sharing locational information, geotagging, or sharing photos for our participants to create an autobiography which would remind future selves where they come from and how they used to be. As Cavarero (2000) argues, “every human being, without even wanting to know it, is aware of being a narratable self—immersed in the spontaneous auto-narration of memory” (p. 33). Sometimes participants consciously created autobiographical life narratives, but other times the technology automatically saved their mobile traces and preserved their pasts. Yet, this may not always be a celebrated function of technology. As Casey (2000, p. 3) argues, the more we rely on technology to remember, the less responsibility we have for our own remembering. For our participants, the outsourcing of memory-keeping to mobile media facilitated such memory work and actually helped them remember specific events and places while they scroll back through their mobile devices. However, they also noted that such a reliance on mobile media in order to archive or record has increased the risk of losing such memories because if they lose their mobile media, their archives of memories would be lost with those devices as well.

The automatic collection of locational information is increasing as mobile applications and location-based services have the technical opportunity to collect such data. Therefore, the mutual shaping of locational information and mobile media is increasing, not only for everyday users but in the construction of the platforms and services themselves. This raises important questions not only about who has access to such data or memories, but how is that information used and when, or if, it is ever forgotten (Mayer-Schoenberger, 2009).

Conclusion

Memory studies have long noted the relationship between memory and place and more recently between memory and media. Similarly mobile communication studies have argued the mutual shaping of mobile media and place. This study reveals the interrelationship between media, memory, and place. Memory work is simultaneously shaped by media and place, and in turn each transforms and reinforces the other. Similarly, place is shaped by memory and media. As people use mobile media, they engage in place-based meaning-making and memory work. Mobile media offer new and creative ways to record and document the current. Hence, they have the potential to affect how one remembers and exercises the past.

The ways of preserving the past through mobile media could be in the form of sharing locational information, geotagging, or sharing mobile photos in order to create an autobiography which would remind our future selves where we come from and how we used to be. By using mobile social media we sometimes consciously create our everyday life narratives in terms of identity work, or intending to hang onto a moment. Other times we unconsciously preserve our pasts simply because the technology automatically saves our experiences as we leave mobile media traces.

Conceptually, memory work reveals the ways locational information can communicate multiple and different aspects of places, which project the self onto places in the form of an autobiography. Hence, the ultimate goal in checking-in or sharing locational information is not only to express the self and establish an impression over the others, but also to reflect on it as mediated memories. Therefore, by going back to the narratives of places and place-specific events, which were created through mobile media traces, we reevaluate and reflect on our own sense of selves, which can also bring a nostalgic element from our past.

Using mobile media in everyday life, one can share individual or collective meanings assigned to places. These mediated memories also become a different way of self-presentation because they do not only present places, but also communicate different aspects of the self. By reviewing the narratives of places and place-specific events, as captured by mobile media, we may reevaluate and reflect on our own experiences. On the other hand, it is important to note that the technologies that enable us to remember specific experiences play only a partial role; in that they can only record, store, and retrieve information. Understood this way, mobile media may not only act in memory-making, but also as platforms that enable us perform our experiences of memory and place-making.

This study suggests several future lines of research. First, this study raises the question about the relationship between data and memories. While the platforms and services that facilitate the capturing and sharing of mobile content might conceptualize these as data, for the producers and consumers of these traces they are memories. The same information may raise different cultural and ethical values when framed as data versus memories. Second, how do new apps and services, like TimeHop or Historypin, facilitate memory work through the reminding of previous traces? Lastly, future research might more closely examine the materiality of mediated memories and place. While this study suggests the materiality of the mobile phone itself plays an important role as a memory object, how does the materiality of place influence mediated memories and how might these memories attain other material forms beyond the mobile device?

Footnotes

Funding

The 2012 study received partial funding from the University of Westminster.

Author biographies

Didem Özkul is an independent researcher working on mobile media and digital cultures. Her current research focuses on the political economy of mobile media, specifically, the commercial uses of locative media and commodification of location information. She received her PhD from the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster in 2014.

Lee Humphreys is an Associate Professor in Communication at Cornell University. She studies historical media practices, everyday conceptions and practices regarding privacy on social media, and cultural differences in mobile social network use. She received her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007.

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