Eco.Pós - Programa de Pós-Graduação da Escola de Comunicação da UFRJ

Media, memory and amnesia: journalism and the culture of nostalgia in the contemporary world

Description

One of the objectives of this project is to present, from the perspective of communication, a discussion about the concept of memory and forgetfulness in some of its multiple meanings and also to deal with its relations with three pairs of questions that are related to them: individual and society; time and narrative; and identity and power. In order to think of the media as a privileged place in the production of mnemonic narratives in contemporary times, it is necessary to place central issues of temporality, social identities, the technological environment, the logic of spectacle and entertainment. The ultimate goal is to draw attention to what we see as the particularities of memory today. Our proposal is to do this by emphasizing the journalistic field, where the articulations with the culture of memory are less evident, due to the presentismo and importance of the actuality in the production of the news. To achieve these theoretical objectives, the project starts not only from a bibliographical discussion, but also from the analysis of empirical sources. A very diverse set of materials from the 1990s to the present will be taken as a starting point. We will use not only media products identified with the culture of memory and nostalgia (such as films, miniseries, journalistic programs, biographies, websites, social networks, scientific dissemination magazines, self-help books and other printed and audiovisual works), and also self-referencing texts (such as editorials, advertisements and advertisements, commemorative editions, year-end retrospectives, institutional editions). As part of this last group, the celebratory ephemeris also come, moments very explored by the communication companies to talk about themselves and their values. In the times in which we live, remember and forget are articulated in a logic that goes beyond the dialectics founder of all memory and constitutes the very contradictory principle of its functioning. And it is precisely this complex, difficult and problematic articulation between memory and amnesia in the contemporary world the theme of this research project. The intention here is precisely to try to understand how these two dimensions coexist in contemporary societies and to perceive the relationships that they establish between them. To what extent amnesia and memory can coexist and relate? As our reflection comes from the field of communication, there is an important issue that touches us closely: what is the role of the media in shaping a social memory in contemporary times? If we look closely at the culture of memory and its products, we easily perceive the privileged place that the media in general - whether new or traditional - occupy in the production and strengthening of their practices. And then many questions arise. Why is there an obsession with memory in the media? How can certain frames of memory become outsourced and legitimized in the media? The so-called "memory culture" seems to be everywhere: movies, books, exhibitions, clothing and retro furniture. But what is important to emphasize is the place that media (traditional and new) occupy in this process. The cult of the past permeates society as a whole, including the most everyday personal practices (such as the desire to keep everything and file away, fear of forgetfulness and amnesia), but it is in the media that it gains greater visibility and power of Social scheduling. To reinforce the idea of an intrinsic relationship between culture of memory and media culture, we can cite some examples of appropriation of nostalgia by the media entertainment industry: cinematic superproductions that explored the historical theme, remakes of novels, series and miniseries on the Past of a locality or nation or about certain specific events, TV channels devoted entirely to history, such as the History Channel, as well as television programs such as the Arquivo N at GloboNews. It is worth highlighting the success of the Viva channel, which reprises programs produced by TV Globo and GNT and is now one of the most watched Brazilian pay TV. Examples related to media entertainment could be cited as exhaustion, but there is another phenomenon that interests us more particularly and on which the emphasis of the research proposed here will rest. It concerns journalism, which has also been affected by the appreciation movement of the past. In recent years, he has made a constant appeal to history, both in his processes of social legitimacy, self-referencing, and in his everyday, journalistic statement (such as news, reports, news notes). And they have done it in an increasingly constant and intense way. In recent years, his gaze has turned more backward. We are witnessing a real explosion of memory discourse in journalism. This might seem a contradiction, for journalism is by definition the negation of the past. Newspapers and journalistic programs in general are produced to communicate contemporaneously, synchronically localized, the events of their time. They are made for readers and spectators, not for historians. Your anchor is the present time. Its articulating axis is the current, the new. Here is our main hypothesis: the memorialistic dimension of journalistic practice is fundamental to give meaning to the profession in the contemporary world. And it even functions as an important element in the process of social legitimation of its "main" function. Journalists perceive the memorialist dimension of their practice and use it to substantiate their values, to justify their deontology. Semanzing the present and constructing meanings about the past has been, at present, one of the characteristics most valued by the news media.