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On “Storing Information” in Families: (Mediated) Family Memory at the Intersection of Individual and Collective Remembering

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Information Storage

Abstract

When approaching “information storage” from a social science perspective, there are different actors and actor constellations that have a stake in the kind of information that is stored, how it is stored, and therefore in determining what is ultimately remembered. Consequently, a continuous interplay between individual and collective dimensions can be observed in the production of memory in societies. This chapter introduces to (cultural) memory research with a focus on family practices of remembering in today’s media environment. We argue that family memory is situated at the intersection between individual and collective memory and can therefore serve to illustrate different strands in interdisciplinary memory research. We first provide a brief overview of memory studies in conjunction with media and then introduce the study of family memory in particular. Secondly, we introduce different ways of researching family memory and illustrate these with a number of examples of empirical studies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the difference of mediation and mediatization: “While ‘mediation’ refers to the process of communication in general—that is, how communication has to be understood as involving the ongoing mediation of meaning construction, “mediatization” is a category designed to describe change. […] Mediatization reflects how the overall consequences of multiple processes of mediation have changed with the emergence of different kinds of media” [8, p. 197].

  2. 2.

    For a more elaborate version of these explanations on family memory please see [34].

  3. 3.

    From the backcover blurb of the German edition of the quiz: “The Erzähl-mal!-family-quiz provides stimuli for conversation and helps retrieve real memory treasures” (“Das Erzähl-mal!-Familienquiz bietet wertvolle Anregungen zum Gespräch und hilft, wahre Erinnerungsschätze zu heben”).

  4. 4.

    At the point of writing, ten qualitative interviews have been conducted. The duration of the individual interviews is between 40 and 120 min.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- und Informationsforschung (ZeMKI), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Rieke Böhling

  2. FB Kommunikationswissenschaft, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Christine Lohmeier

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  1. Rieke Böhling
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  2. Christine Lohmeier
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Correspondence to Rieke Böhling .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Group of Computer Architecture Faculty 3 - Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Cornelia S. Große

  2. Group of Computer Architecture Faculty 3 - Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Rolf Drechsler

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Böhling, R., Lohmeier, C. (2020). On “Storing Information” in Families: (Mediated) Family Memory at the Intersection of Individual and Collective Remembering. In: Große, C., Drechsler, R. (eds) Information Storage. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19262-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19262-4_6

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