Memory snacking the Ukrainian way: Tiktok as the participatory archive of the first post-Soviet decade in Ukraine

Makhortykh, Mykola (3 February 2022). Memory snacking the Ukrainian way: Tiktok as the participatory archive of the first post-Soviet decade in Ukraine (Unpublished). In: Independence. Archive. Prognosis. Ukraine in 1991-2021 and Beyond. University of Melbourne/online. 03.02.-05.02.2022.

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The rise of platforms has a profound impact on how individuals and societies remember and reimagine the past. By giving their users new possibilities for creating digital cultural products (e.g., memes or YouTube videos), platforms turn into participatory archives which facilitate imaginative engagements with the history as well as nostalgic and traumatic feelings associated with it. These engagements often involve interactions with the existing cultural products (e.g., literary pieces or popular songs) which are referenced and remixed as part of creative reflection on the past. Such reflection can challenge, but also reinforce dominant memory discourses, shaping how specific historical periods are viewed by particular mnemonic communities.

To better understand the interactions between platforms, cultural products, and memory in the context of Ukraine and its ambiguous relationship with the post-Soviet transition, I examine content produced by Ukrainian TikTok users in relation to likhie devianostye. Specifically, I am interested in the process of creative appropriation of cultural products related to the first post-Soviet decade (e.g., remixing of popular nineties’ songs or movies portraying the period) to reimagine the post-Soviet transition and communicate nostalgia and trauma associated with it. Similar to many other post-socialist countries, in Ukraine the nineties are praised as the time when Ukraine's independence was restored, but are also associated with the economic decline and the societal insecurity. This mnemonic uncertainty is further amplified by the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the fundamental revision of Ukraine’s past which accompanies the identitarian changes caused by the conflict.

Against this backdrop, online platforms become key mediums for revisiting and reimagining the past in Ukraine. TikTok is of a particular interest here both because of its growing popularity in Ukraine (from 3% of Ukraine’s Internet users in 2019 to 30% in 2021) and its distinct function as a medium for producing and sharing small-size online cultural products which are used for entertainment purposes, but also serve as a form of digital memorabilia. Building upon my earlier research on the use of TikTok for transmitting nostalgia and trauma about the nineties in the Russian context (Makhortykh, 2021), I will use a combination of qualitative content analysis and close reading to examine whether there are distinct features in how Ukrainian users use the platform for creative appropriation of cultural products to reflect on the past and what image of the nineties is created as the result of this process.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ICMB)
UniBE Contributor:	Makhortykh, Mykola
Subjects:	000 Computer science, knowledge & systems 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology 900 History
Language:	English
Submitter:	Mykola Makhortykh
Date Deposited:	23 Jun 2022 14:43
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 16:20
Uncontrolled Keywords:	TikTok, Ukraine, nostalgia, trauma, digital memory, platforms
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170684