Digital Culture, New Media and The Transformation of Collective Memory

Abstract

Along with the advent of digital technologies, modern and “semimodern” societies met a new phase of temporality. Speed, mobility and globality epitomise the fundamental characteristics of this process. New media, as a form of communication that consist of “digitality, interactivity and hypertextuality”, enable the genesis of a new memory culture in which audiences act as memory “prosumers”. Yet it is dubious whether this new era will lead to a “memory boom” or a “digital amnesia” when one takes into account the material restrictions of digital platforms, like their lifespan. This article aims to discuss the possibilities/impossibilities of the digital communication and understand its contributions to the construction of collective memory.