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Connective Memory Work on Justice for Mike Brown

2020; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-030-32827-6_4

2634-6265

Rik Smit,

Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics

This chapter reconceptualises memory construction in the context of social media activism as connective memory work. A form of connective action, connective memory work invites digitally networked individuals to affectively associate with a movement and contribute to its collective identity. This is illustrated by a case study of the Facebook page Justice for Mike Brown, set up a day after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. Four types of connective memory work are discerned: networked commemoration, iconic resurrection and appropriation, digital archiving and curation, and crowd reconstruction. The chapter concludes by arguing that connective memory work is the result of both human and 'non-human' agency. Studies of memory construction vis-à-vis social movements should therefore take social media seriously as actors in these processes.