Nostalgia, lost connections and the ‘Sudden Unified Self’

Abstract

The study of nostalgia has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, spanning a wide variety of disciplines. As previous scholars have suggested, nostalgia permeates our communicative environment. Ironically, from a communicative perspective, clear definitions of ‘nostalgia’ can be elusive. For the purposes of Media Ecology, a helpful definition of nostalgia concerns lost connections: relationships with other beings, not artefacts, form the communicative environment of nostalgia. When the relationships are presumed to be with objects – as is often the case – nostalgia can induce playful responses to pain, but also can problematize expressions of collective memory and out-group identities. This article surveys implications of ‘lost connections’ for Media Ecology.