Mediale Erinnerungsarbeit zwischen Retrospektion und Projektion

Abstract

Remembering is both a cognitive act and a communicative process. The social conduct is dependent on media in order to record, transport, and relive all things deemed memorable. Starting from this basic assumption, the article discusses, in a first step, the concept of media memory work through which relations to the past are accom­plished and enacted. In a second step, the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia is investigated in order to understand what kinds of insights about the contingent and potentially conflictual constitution of mnemonic texts can be derived. Finally, we take a look at the twofold temporal orientation of media memory work that is not only happening in retrospect since all references to the past implicate a space of possible future developments.