Are Memories Of Old Wars Used As The Fodder For New Ones?

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Collective memory, before, during, and after wartime plays a large part in forming a narrative that plays an important role in society.  The collective memory of an event is often expressed through the media, especially within the past 100 years. Habitually, this happens through the voices of bureaucratic institutions or figures. Fishman argues that these bureaucratic institutions are a “fountain of information” (1999 [1980]: 108) and journalists know that there will be vast information within these institutions.

An example of bureaucratic institutions forming a narrative of war and collective memory was when journalists truthfully reported on the statements of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld regarding weapons that Iraq ‘had in their possession'. These statements made by the dominant social ideology (The United States Government) formed a pre-war (and post 1991 Gulf War) narrative that society could understand; Iraq has weapons and has used them in the past, therefore, they are a present danger to the United States.

Collective Memory & Media

Collective memories are recollections of important shared experiences by social groups which range from families to specific societies to nation states. Osiel elaborates;

“Collective memories are most likely to be formed when groups encounter significant threats and adverse events or victories over adversity that get imprinted on the collective consciousness of a group… Narratives that contribute to collective memory can contribute to social dialogue by helping create common values among citizens” (Osiel, 1999: Cited in Kahana, E. & Kahana, B: 2006 p3).

Individual recollections of events are reliant on frameworks of social memory. The “various groups that compose society are capable at every moment of reconstructing their past". These frameworks that bonded the collectivities of the past are intensively and extensively mediated in the media environment of today. One can even suggest that the media themselves operate as a ‘framework’ of memory as they assist continuously the reconstruction of our past by dominating the present” (Halbwachs: 1992, cited in Hoskins: 2004).

Using the media as a “framework of memory” one correlates links between media and collective memory.  Consequentially, this raises concerns as to what imagery and video the media are showing audiences. The mainstream media can now dictate history or events and this creates a collective memory, often juxtaposed through flash frame pictures of events such as 9/11.

Hoskins argues, Technological advances, such as television, film and radio, over the past 100 years have transformed our experience of time and space. Over time, these technological advances have also essentially altered the foundation of what has been called collective memory (2004: p3).

This phenomenon somewhat proves that the process of collective memory has changed with the changes in media seen in the modern world. News programming increasingly besieges television screens and viewers with complex and simultaneous mediations of proximate and distant events, collapsing past and present.

The images that are seen on television or in a newspaper also give the viewer a context in which to view the specific event. Television can be said to be an ‘attractor’ that collapses memory and history into its real-time void (Hoskins: 2004: p16). This observation could be seen as a collapse of the context in which society views events, giving society a ‘front-row-seat’ to news and images, essentially turning the audience into witnesses of history.  This new context of media leaves the audience vulnerable to the narrative presented through television and other sources of media. The theory presented by Hoskins is also fueled by the assumption that the media is a reliable, accurate source which gives images and information a context to the audience.

Further Reading:

Kahana, E. & Kahana, B. (2006). Dual Meanings of Collective Memory: Survivors' and Academics'Perspectives on Genocide. American Sociological Association, Quebec, Canada. 

Niewyk, Donald L. (2000). The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press.

Martinson, D. (2006). The Media, the War and Truth. In America Vol. 194. No. 1. (pp. 10-13).

Fishman, M. (1980). Manufacturing the News (excerpt). In Tumbler et al. News: A Reader. Oxford