Past Is Another Resource: Remembering the 70th Anniversary of the Victory Day on LiveJournal

Makhortykh, Mykola; Lyebyedyev, Yehor; Kravtsov, Daniel (2020). Past Is Another Resource: Remembering the 70th Anniversary of the Victory Day on LiveJournal. Nationalities Papers, 49(2), pp. 375-388. Taylor & Francis 10.1017/nps.2019.64

[img]
Preview
Text
past_is_another_resource.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY).

Download (214kB) | Preview

In our article we examine changes experienced by media and memory systems in Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis. Using as an example a popular Russian blogging platform, LiveJournal, we scrutinize how the digital practices related to commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany are influenced by the growing instrumentalization of Second World War memory for media propaganda and manipulation. Using topic modeling to analyze a large set of data on Russian users’ interactions with the platform, we examine how hegemonic and alternative interpretations of the Second World War interact on LiveJournal and how their interactions are influenced by the growing antagonism between Russia and the West. Our findings suggest that LiveJournal constitutes a fractured memory system, which is characterized by uneven representation of Second World War experiences and the growing influence of pro-government actors promoting hegemonic war narratives. However, our observations also show that instrumentalization of the past in the context of the Ukraine crisis does not necessarily interfere with digital practices of Second World War commemoration with the latter remaining unaffected by the events in Ukraine.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ICMB)

UniBE Contributor:

Makhortykh, Mykola

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
900 History

ISSN:

0090-5992

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Language:

English

Submitter:

Mykola Makhortykh

Date Deposited:

06 Feb 2020 14:27

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:36

Publisher DOI:

10.1017/nps.2019.64

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Russia, memory, digital memory, LiveJournal, Ukraine, war, propaganda

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.139546

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/139546

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback