Localizing Collective Memory: Radio Broadcasts and the Construction of Regional Memory

Abstract

This study, which focuses on the interrelations between media, memory, and collectives, examines the significant role played by the media in forming the two dimensions of collective mediated recollections: shaping the memory and defining the boundaries of the collective. One of the central arguments raised in recent years in the field of social science maintains that more attention should be shifted to the ‘cosmopolitan turn’ (Beck, 2003; Beck and Sznaider, 2006), the process that involves more openness to the transnational arena and the sensitivity to ‘universal values’ that become part of national societies. Within this context, we argue that although most of the research devoted to collective memory centers on the construction of national memory — in the era of globalization, collective memory and commemoration that exist in a cosmopolitan context (Levy and Sznaider, 2006) — it does not necessarily promote national values. We will contend that, parallel to the ‘cosmopolitan turn’, a reverse process might be identified whereby small communities — the relations among whose members rely on geographical or ideological vicinity, or yet on common areas of interest — succeed in creating regional-communal-local versions of the collective national memory.1

This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant no. 291/07). The research project explored different aspects and modes of MDHH commemoration on Israeli radio and television (Meyers, Neiger, and Zandberg, 2011; Neiger, Meyers, and Zandberg, 2011).