Mediated memory: Political assassinations and the dialectics of social remembrance

Without denying the importance and function of memory in society, I believe, we must look at the constitution and (re)construction of social memory from what I call an ‘interactive perspective.’ This perspective investigates the formation of memory by examining how a collective and hegemonic memory articulation interacts with a popular formation of recollections. First, this view recognizes that memory can be formed within institutional hegemony and is disseminated through mass media systems. Second, this perspective also concedes that people not only draw memories from a group context (as Halbwachs and Connerton remind us) but also from the autobiographical and relational, thereby allowing individuals to resist and even ignore collective articulations of memory. Hence, an interactive perspective of memory does not take recollections out of its social context but problematizes and questions the composition, capability and function of a ‘memory from above’ (i.e., a collective and hegemonic formation of memory), vis-à-vis a ‘memory from below’ (i.e., a popular formation memory). In doing so, the interactivity of memory, as I propose, does not create two completely separate types of memory but establishes the similarities and differences between two mnemonic modes within the construction of social memory. This means that the dialectical tension (i.e., action/reaction) between collective and popular memory activates the process of social and historical remembrance. The action/reaction or memory dialectic emerges from the tension between collective strategies (i.e., interpellation, palimpsest and imagery) and popular tactics (dispositifs) such as counter-narratives, memory embodiment and performative rituals.