Remembering and Recovering Shanghai: Seven Jewish Families [Re]-connect in Cyberspace

Querying the Internet as a mnemonic practice: how search engines mediate four types of past events in Russia

“…However, extant literature touches only in passing on the mnemonic practice of Internet searching, with scholars typically not grounding their claims in systematically collected empirical evidence. Jakubowicz (2009), for instance, notes in his case study of Shanghai's Jewish history that major search engines privilege websites of higher quality, 'as qualified by government, education or research criteria' (p. 99), and strive to balance this approach with commercial incentives. Similarly, Reading (2011: 250) supplements a broader line of argument in her analysis with an illustrative example, referring to the outcome of a single search query she conducted in 2009 using the term 'Neda' (referring to Neda Agha Soltan, an Iranian woman who was shot dead on 22 June 2009, during street protests in Tehran).…”

“…Having familiarised ourselves with the two strands of literature reviewed above, and with how the two search engines operate in Russia, we embarked on the process of grounded theory development with three questions in mind. As Jiang (2014) argues, search engines 'can be architecturally altered to serve political regimes' and may be considered, to a certain degree, 'arbitrary in rendering social realities' (p. 212; for similar arguments in the memory studies literature, see Jakubowicz, 2009;Reading, 2011). Thus, our first research question was as follows: can we, despite this alleged arbitrariness in 'rendering social realities', identify characteristic patterns with regard to search results obtained for different types of past events (RQ1)?…”

“…Among other things, they have scrutinised software programmes created to store personal memories (Van Dijck, 2007) and studied how social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are used as memory-sharing platforms and digital archives (Garde-Hansen, 2011;Garde-Hansen et al, 2009;Horsti, 2017;Rutten et al, 2013). Yet, the relationship to memory of the practice of searching for information -one of the most popular activities pursued online by users worldwide (Hargittai, 2007;Jiang, 2014) -has received comparatively little attention (for studies that touch on this question in passing, consider Jakubowicz, 2009;Reading, 2011;Van Dijck, 2007). Given this lack of previous writing on the topic, the overarching exploratory research question of this study can be formulated as follows: how do search engines affect the representations of the past they produce in query results and can any systematic patterns be identified with regard to that?…”

Placeless and barrier-free? Connecting place memories online within an unequal society

“…By connecting autobiographic memory to larger societal issues, the former becomes part of historical culture (Rüsen, 1994) and hyperlinks, for example, can serve as active connectors of content across the internet (Rose, 2018). Through tailored website design, connections across individual memories can be created with thematic links and tags that show the relevance of autobiographic stories for wider historical narratives (Jakubowicz, 2009). Digital online expressions and engagements thus have larger networking and connective capacity than previous media, while the realisation of this capacity depends on specific use of media and website configurations.…”

“…Specifically tagging and linking features can enable the connective aspect of online media. However, while authorisation institutions and practices are challenged and transformed online (Hoskins, 2009: 32; Jakubowicz, 2009: 99), many processes of online discourse and circulation depend on the same institutions of authorisation as the offline world. Jakubowicz (2009), for example, highlights the role of Google in ranking search results using selection algorithms that define ‘quality’ according to ‘government, education or research criteria’ (p. 99).…”