(Ebook) Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory by

Paul Wilson; Patrick McEntaggart ISBN 9781848880900,

1848880901 Pdf Download

https://ebooknice.com/product/navigating-landscapes-of-mediated-
memory-51706908

★★★★★
4.9 out of 5.0 (81 reviews )

Instant PDF Download

ebooknice.com
 (Ebook) Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory by Paul
Wilson; Patrick McEntaggart ISBN 9781848880900, 1848880901
Pdf Download

EBOOK

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide Ebook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

 We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click
the link to download now, or visit ebooknice.com
to discover even more!

(Ebook) Mythologizing the Vietnam War : Visual Culture and

Mediated Memory by Jennifer Good; Paul Lowe; Brigitte
Lardinois; Val Williams; Jennifer Good; Paul Lowe ISBN
9781443869485, 1443869481
https://ebooknice.com/product/mythologizing-the-vietnam-war-visual-culture-
and-mediated-memory-51334696

(Ebook) Landscapes of Memory: Turner as Illustrator to Scott by

Gerald Finley ISBN 9780520319912, 0520319915

https://ebooknice.com/product/landscapes-of-memory-turner-as-illustrator-
to-scott-51824698

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles,

James ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492,
1459699815, 1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) PDZ Mediated Interactions by Jean-Paul Borg ISBN

9781071611654, 1071611658

https://ebooknice.com/product/pdz-mediated-interactions-47697072
(Ebook) Piano adventures Performance 3b by Nancy and Randall
Faber

https://ebooknice.com/product/piano-adventures-performance-3b-52393612

(Ebook) Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory (Routledge Research

in Cultural and Media Studies, Volume 29) by Brett Ashley Kaplan
ISBN 9780203842270, 9780415874762, 0203842278, 0415874769

https://ebooknice.com/product/landscapes-of-holocaust-postmemory-routledge-
research-in-cultural-and-media-studies-volume-29-1715540

(Ebook) Navigating Digital Health Landscapes: A

Multidisciplinary Analysis by Anna Lydia Svalastog, Sre■ko
Gajovi■, Andrew Webster ISBN 9789811582059, 9789811582066,
981158205X, 9811582068
https://ebooknice.com/product/navigating-digital-health-landscapes-a-
multidisciplinary-analysis-22473862

(Ebook) Richard III (The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare 29)

by William Shakespeare ISBN 9781108006019, 1108006019

https://ebooknice.com/product/richard-iii-the-cambridge-dover-wilson-
shakespeare-29-2116616

(Ebook) Memory and Survival the French Cinema of Krzysztof

Kieslowski by Wilson, Emma ISBN 9781351198615, 1351198610

https://ebooknice.com/product/memory-and-survival-the-french-cinema-of-
krzysztof-kieslowski-11906932
Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory
 Critical Issues
Critical Issues

Series Editors
Dr Robert Fisher
Dr Daniel Riha

Advisory Board

Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter

Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick
Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris
Mira Crouch Professor John Parry
Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds
Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig
Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri
Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

A Critical Issues research and publications project.

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/

The Cyber Hub

‘Digital Memories’

2011
Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory

Edited by

Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom
© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network

for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and
encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and
which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior
permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland,

Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom.
+44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-090-0
First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.
 Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

PART 1 Social Networking and its Impact on Memories

Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global 3

Village. The Significance of Regional, National and
Transnational Identities in Social Network Sites
Bernadette Kneidinger

Traumatic Event and Digital Memories: Remembering 15

and Processing the Earthquake in Abruzzi
Alessandra Micalizzi

PART 2 Transformation and Re-Interpretation of Memories

in New Media

Memories about Socialism into the Internet Forum of 29

Bulgarian Emigrants in United Kingdom
Mila Maeva

Remixes and Appropriations of Socialist Legacy Online

0B 39
Valentina Gueorguieva

PART 3 Platforms and Applications

YouTube and Post-Yugoslav Anti-Fascism

1B 49
Martin Pogačar

How to Explore a Digitalised Autobiographical Corpus: 57

The Case of Frantext
2B

Véronique Montémont

PART 4 Digital Memories and Cultural Heritage

Identifying Challenges in Museums’ Online Communities

3B 69
Merja Nummi and Leila Stenfors

PART 5 Digital Horizons of Remembering Wars and Conflicts

From World War 2 to World War 2.0: Commemorating 81

 War and Holocaust in Poland on the Internet
4B

Dieter De Bruyn

Memorial of Deportation
5B 91
Philippe Campays, Stephanie Liddicoat and Matt Randell

Web Wars, or Russia’s and Ukraine’s Digital Languages 99

of Memory
Ellen Rutten

PART 6 Past and New Architectures for Memory

Metadata and New Architectures of Memory 111

in Programmable Environments
6B

Carlos Henrique Falci

Blended Memory: The Changing Balance of 121

Technologically-Mediated Semantic and Episodic
Memory
Tim Fawns

Interface Archaeology in Simulation Culture

7B 133
Seppo Kuivakari

PART 7 New Media Formats

Retrogaming Community Memory and Discourses 145

of Digital History
Jaakko Suominen

PART 8 Media Archeologies

Audiovirtual Oblivion: Media Archaeology of Early 157

Finnish Music Web and its Vanishing
8B

Janne Mäkelä and Jaakko Suominen

A Community Kept Alive through Memory: Preserving 167

the Essence of the British Working-Men’s Club
Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart
 Introduction

Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

The papers in this volume reflect the debates that progressed during the 3rd Global
Conference on Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues, held as part of Cyber
Hub activity in Prague, Czech Republic in March 2011. These edited draft papers
make up an intriguing critical snapshot in advance of the final published texts.
As has been evident since the first conference on Digital Memory, the
development of new technologies for communication is inextricably tied to
processes and practises of memory. The impact of our ongoing shift towards the
digital is still playing out - where issues around persona, identity and context are
fundamental to how we select to present ourselves in our increasingly online,
socially-networked and global mesh of connections, confusions and potential
contradictions.
A key insight gained by the first conference was the acknowledgment that how
we remember (and how we develop our practises of remembering) in the digital
realm will most certainly have ‘... political [and] economic impact on
contemporary society and...will be crucial for knowledge and power distribution in
the future.’ 1
This is becoming more important and conferences such as this are vital to how
we might begin to understand and act upon such knowledge - where society may
be constantly (re)structured around notions of digital ‘remembering,’ both in terms
of how we strategically look to archive ourselves and our own lives (long-term)
and how we actively engage with practises of curation and communication in terms
of our existence on an everyday basis.
Such technological change is clearly and profoundly altering the relationship
we can and do have with ourselves and, significantly, with each other. Our
communal presentation of the self is a keystone for much of how we view and use
networked technologies in contemporary life. This notion of the social web - with
ourselves at the centre - pervades all manner of how we work and live in twenty-
first century consumer cultures.
The performative connotations - where life is documented for ‘audiences’ of
varying makeup, reach and response - shapes production and consumption of
ourselves and the memories we select for public broadcast.
Our negotiation of such strategies for performance involve complex sets of
selection and deletion, where the fluidity of data aids the purge and/or purification
of potentially ruinous or embarrassing or uncomfortable or inappropriate
memories. The consequences of such acts when building databases for future
memorial are still to be formulated and felt.
Such ‘functionalisation’ of memory (as outlined in the first conference) acts to
reconfigure an essential aspect of human behaviour, a streamlining of memory in
accordance with, and as a consequence of, new strategies for social interaction and
viii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
communication. We can rewrite popular archives of ourselves and our actions
instantly and permanently. A by-product of the all-encompassing power and
potential for harvesting this newly processed data is the value it may go on to have
when harvested in the name of market research.
Our ease with the relationships being built between ourselves and those who
would look to benefit from information we are making freely available might only
be tested through the lens of memory. We are, perhaps, in a process of almost
continual reconstruction of ourselves, with each tooled for, and tied to, a particular
outlet or aperture; configured to meet the requirements of particular technologies
and contexts. To what extent, however, do we actively consume memory (and
identity)? Or do we passively take part in an imagined, consensual, hallucinatory
‘experience’ of engagement which looks to convince us that we are making
decisions that are not - in fact - ours?
The notion of a relationship between memory and ideology, therefore, comes
into play - particularly when technology and cultures of communication are taken
into account. We co-opt media to capture and act out narratives which we see fit to
document for future consumption (by others).
Whilst the raft of papers presented at the conference were each unique in their
approach and specific focus, it was clear that some common themes united this
colourful spectrum of research on Digital Memory. The impact of social media and
how it can - and is - shape community memory is particularly prominent and
threads through a number of the papers. The dominance of ideas of the social and
of place via digital media is becoming ever more critical in terms of our
understanding of how we come to view ourselves and how we might further
understand memory and the ways in which we might and do remember.
The range and potential diversity of the papers - due to the deliberately
contrived interdisciplinary nature of such an event as DM3 - reveals and allows for
a sharing of potential methodologies, approaches and outcomes.
Given the last conference was held within a broader context - with
cybercultures - it is interesting and stimulating to see the directions that scholars of
digital memory are now currently taking: where a new focus upon the specifics of
DM are given time and space to breathe. Some crossovers with cybercultures of
course remain, particularly in discussion of how categories such as national
identity might be documented and memorialised via new technologies and where
the fragmentary consequences of such a shift are, ironically, playing a part in the
erosion of familiar and long-standing notions such as nationhood. A swing towards
the local is one notable symptom of the ways in which new technologies for
storage and dissemination of memory are altering self-perception and orientation
between and within the physical and emotional landscapes of the individual and
communal.
Where communities of place are being reconfigured, transformed and in some
cases smashed, the need for particular cultures of memory are often most acute.
 Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart ix
__________________________________________________________________
This traumatic deterritorialisation - and its consequences upon landscape and the
politics of how we are to interact with place and people - are played out most
explicitly in forms of, and forums for, digital memory. The often fraught decisions
involved in how we choose to remember can lead to tensions centring around
policies or strategies for selection and how such narratives might then be
constructed. How we choose to deal with the pragmatics of how contemporary
technologies facilitate memorialisation is becoming more pressing since the pace
of technological change shows no sign of abating.
Changes in technology also present new possibilities and opportunities for both
the presentation and consumption of memory - our ability to drift through ever-new
digital environments of on-the-fly memories grants us the ability to construct,
reconstruct and tear down long-standing architectures through which memory has
been communicated. We are also developing capabilities for creatively excavating
communities via memory: where reminiscence and storytelling become our means
of navigating people and places at points of near-disappearance.
Social networking has had a significant impact on many aspects of peoples
online practices including the way memories are created and shared among users of
such networks. The social networks have allowed us to digitise many aspects of
life from the personal to the communal, a sense of who we are offline is extended
into this online space where we represent our identity whether personal, regional,
national or global. This transnational identity is explored in Bernadette
Kneidinger’s paper. She looks at how users express the differing levels of identity,
regional, national and global in the context of social media, specifically Facebook.
Group and fanpages seem to allow users to express these levels of identity, through
membership, conversation and sharing of symbols and pictures, each one of these
interactions reinforces remembrance. Rather than erode the importance of regional
or national identity, Bernadette’s research suggests social networks allow for an
integration of these through digital memories that could be classified as collective
memory.
Members of social networks are quite active and engaged with memory through
their interaction with the medium, this activity is memory creation on many levels.
Users are given the opportunity to participate in the production of digital
memories. In her paper, ‘Traumatic Event and Digital Memories: Remembering
and Processing the Earthquake in Abruzzi,’ Alessandra Micalizzi argues that this
has democratised memory. Participation is of huge importance in relation to the
memory of collective catastrophes such as the earthquake in Abruzzi, the act of
memory creation can be seen as a way of expressing solidarity. She challenges us
with the question of whether these memories are truly collective memory, although
they are created and shared by collections of users.
If digital memories are considered to be collective or not they cannot be
divorced from the individual and the personal. Although some material may be
derived from sources not personal to the user, the memories have the potential to
x Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
be intertwined with the personal. Mila Maeva’s paper, ‘Memories about Socialism
into the Internet Forum of Bulgarian Emigrants in United Kingdom,’ focuses on
Bulgarian imminent expression of identity through social forums. The connections
with Bernadette Kneidinger’s paper on national identity are obvious; however, in
the case of this diaspora nostalgia for the past plays a key role in facilitating users
in memory creation. These memories become personal to users through the
acceptance by others in this social space, highlighting the importance of interaction
between people in these networks and the role it plays in transforming material.
The interaction between users is communication, and the digital memories that
are created and shared are a part of this communication process. Valentina
Gueorguieva argues in her paper that digital memory can be compared to Jan
Assmann’s definition of communicative memory. It is personal and subjective,
selection plays a crucial role for users who arrange and re-arrange memory
according to their emotions. The paper examines the memory-making practiced by
Bulgarian users in relation to socialism, and it is these practices of remembering
online by creating digital memorials that can be seen as communicative memory.
This online communicative memory cannot be abstracted from the offline and must
be considered in relation to offline memory practice. What are the offline
implications of the online action of memory-making, do they translate into offline
environments and actions?
Martin Pogačar’s paper looks at memory-making facilitated through platforms
such as YouTube, the online is seen as an extension of the offline, enhancing the
immediacy of remembering. Although the initial impetus for the creation of an
online memory such as a video on YouTube may be personal, the fact that it is
shared on a public site where others can express opinion makes it very public. The
digital memory is often a trigger for a wider spectrum of memories that emerge as
a response. Responses create debate and trigger other memories, Pogačar echoes
the point Micalizzi’s paper purported that user participation democratised memory.
Social networks can be perceived as places for democratic memory creation but
there are other sources of memories online that are curated. Véronique Montémont
gives a detailed account of one such source in her paper ‘How to Explore a
Digitalised Autobiographical Corpus: The case of Frantext.’ Montémont details
how curating memories needs to be well considered in order to give an unbiased
and relevant corpus. There is an argument that archives such as this are more
useful than those that encompass everything without design and selection,
Montémont explains how she has expanded the scope of Frantext and the rigor she
applies to her decisions regarding selection.
Whilst Frantext is not an environment in which the public can contribute easily
to memory-making, some memory institutions such as museums have made
attempts to use social media to extend the scope of their work. There are
significant challenges for institutions seeking use online media technologies to
allow knowledge and content sharing. Merja Nummi and Leila Stenfors make an
 Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart xi
__________________________________________________________________
analysis of these endeavours in their paper. The projects analysed occupy a middle
ground between the completely open and free environments like YouTube and
Facebook to the curated environment that is Frantext, they give attempt to
contextualise user generated content by giving structure through the use of topics
and similar devices. Structure by its nature creates some restrictions and inhibits
the freedom of memory-making that we see in open networks. This has some
implications to the preformative effectiveness of the memories. Dieter De Bruyn
discusses the commemorative value of digital memories, he argues that this
depends on the performative effectiveness. The paper provides an analysis of both
social networks and institutional sites in terms of the commemorative experience
they offer to users.
Memory and remembrance can have a profound and lasting effect on the
individual, places of remembrance give us a space in which emotions are evoked.
It can be argued that the digital space is as powerful as the physical in evoking
emotional responses. However, it can also be argued that digital tools allow us to
examine the physical in a way not possible before. In their paper, ‘Memorial of
Deportation,’ Philippe Campays, Stephanie Liddicoat and Matt Randell describe
how the digital is used to create a representation of the affect the physical site of
memory induces. Differing to fixed sites of memory the memory event is temporal
but powerful, creating waves and aftershocks. The memory event is central to Ellen
Rutten’s paper, ‘Web Wars, or Russia’s and Ukraine’s Digital Languages of
Memory,’ the paper refers to the ‘Memory at War’ project and its efforts to trace
online movements in memory that deviate from the accepted representation of
events. Memory events relate to soft memory unlike the hard physical memorial
that is the Le Memorial de la Deportation in Paris; however, the impact can be
dramatic and lasting reverberating through cultural memory.
Technology is in a seemingly unstoppable process of reshaping memory and
our experiences of it. Carlos Falci’s paper presents an intriguing glimpse into one
such form that memory is now taking. The potential for programmable
environments to gather and represent a fluid and collective form of memory
presents us with cultural memory reconfigured in real-time, forever in a state of
flux and under permanent construction. As a by-product of technological
innovation we are seemingly marching forward towards a future wherein memory
is harvested from our everyday lives. Coupled with the global reach of such
innovations, Falci’s paper emphasises the need for rigorous analysis. Similarly,
Tim Fawns’ contribution centres upon the consequences of mediated memory -
when we might be both overwhelmed by and disengaged from memory as a
consequence of its ubiquity via new technologies. Fawns’ notion of blended
memory introduces a potentially valuable contribution to our debates and
discussion: as a concept through which we might balance the new relationships
emerging as we look to digital media for ways to continually externalise that which
we seek to memorialise. Seppo Kuivakari’s paper classifies and categories the
xii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
culture of simulation and cultural memory. This notion of simulation is central to
Kuivakari’s thesis - as a way through which we might master our experiences and
how they can be represented as spectacular cultural objects. In this survey we are
again linked explicitly to the notion that technology is increasingly central to a
process of understanding cultural memory.
The practises of retrogaming reveal a larger set of associative cultural
activities and habits, where new technologies act as a lens through which
communities of gamers engage in a range of discourses centred on games often
decades old. Jaakko Suominen’s exploration of three potential forms of discourse
allows us to map methods for an engaged and reflective analysis of such practises.
Janne Makela and Jaakko Suominen’s discussion of attempts to archive pages from
the web’s earliest incarnation(s) related to Finnish music highlights critical points
in any contemporary historiographical activity. New technology does not often stay
new and, as such, is particularly vulnerable to being overwritten or unpreserved. In
our rush to embrace the latest iterations of media storage and dissemination we
might find ourselves left with little but memories of ‘pages that were once there.’
Their intriguing notion of lost new media raises the possibility, and perhaps need,
of and for the software archaeologist - both in understanding formats and
languages from times past and somehow making clear particular distinctions of
novelty and ‘being first.’ Acts of contemporary preservation seem all the more
critical when output of the recent past appears most likely to fade first. Paul Wilson
and Patrick McEntaggart’s paper looks towards a role technology might play in
preserving a community and culture now almost entirely located in and of memory.
The social spaces of Working-Men’s Clubs in the UK are all but abandoned as
their aging membership dies out. Technologically-mediated memory offers some
opportunity to initially preserve these places and the (mostly) male voices of the
members. More significantly, perhaps, Wilson and McEntaggart suggest a role for
memory as more than simply a document of times past. Instead, they offer such re-
located memory as an activist practise - with the potential to reinvigorate a
seemingly moribund institution.

Notes
1
A. Maj and D. Riha, ‘Introduction’, Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues,
Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2009, p. 1.

Bibliography
Maj, A. and Riha, D., ‘Introduction’, Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues.
Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2009.
 PART 1

Social Networking and its Impact on Memories

Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village.
The Significance of Regional, National and Transnational
Identities in Social Network Sites

Bernadette Kneidinger
Abstract
More than ever before, the future vision of the ‘global village’ 1 seems to become
true with the rapid emerging of social network sites: whereas, in real-life the geo-
political origin of a person plays quite an important role for identity-construction, 2
it has to be questioned what significance regional, national or even transnational
roots pose for users of social network sites. Two effects come into question: 1) a
decreasing importance of nationality because the users regard themselves as
members of a global community; 2) the rediscovery of own regional/national roots.
Two online surveys of Facebook users and non-users and a content analysis of
specific, Austria-bound Facebook groupings show a consistent high importance of
regional and national roots even for the users of the global social network site.

Key Words: National identity, social network sites, global village, patriotism,
nationalism, online survey, content analysis.

*****

1. Introduction and Research Aim

‘Back to the roots’ - this statement, which describes the search for the own
roots, points out very impressively the high importance of the awareness of origin
as well as the feeling of belonging to a place, a group or a community. Thus, a
certain geo-political classification forms an integral part of nearly every individual
identity conception 3 . Thereby, an individual can be localised at a regional, national
or transnational level, but even at more than just one level, depending on a specific
situation or the interaction partners. 4 Whereas in the past, identity concepts were
closely related to regional contexts because of limited mobility and still quite
expensive communication media, nowadays, in the era of the so-called ‘global
village,’ 5 which permits real-time communication regardless of the concrete
location of the interaction partners, 6 transnational identities also become possible.
Particularly, some growing social network sites like Facebook, that are
intentionally designed to create and maintain social contacts independent from
geographical distances, can influence the levels of geo-political identity
construction. Thereby, the question arises how these global networks can cause a
substitution or rather a reinvention of regional and national roots. Therefore, the
main aim of this study is to answer the question of how users of the social network
site Facebook deal with their regional, respectively national identity in the World
4 Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village
__________________________________________________________________
Wide Web and what forms of regional/national identity construction can be found
in social network sites.

2. Theoretical Background - National Identity

Before the significance of regional or national identities in the global network
society can be discussed, the core meaning of the abstract concept of ‘national
identity’ - as one form of geo-political identity - has to be clarified. Haller
describes national identity as a ‘conscious, intellectual-spiritual, judgmental and
emotional-affective founded affirmation of the belonging to a political
community.’ 7 Heyder and Schmidt highlight the emotional aspect of national
identity by describing the emotions ‘that each individual connects with the nation
as a whole respectively with the particular aspects like national history, culture and
economy.’ 8 National identity contains facets of individual identity by forming a
part of the individual’s personality, as well as aspects of a collective identity by
creating a feeling of group belonging.
Additionally, the ‘active character’ 9 of national identity has to be mentioned,
meaning, that on the one hand that national identity is expressed by the activities of
nations as communities, and on the other hand it indicates that national identity
changes over time. 10 It is a well-proven fact, that national identity can lose or gain
significance depending on political, economical and social conditions. 11
Furthermore, for the empirical analysis it is important to distinguish between
two forms of national identity, namely patriotism and nationalism. Whereas the
former is often described as a ‘positive form’ of national identity, the latter is
discussed as a more problematical and as a much more ‘negative form’ of national
identity. In the context of this paper the two identity forms should be used
according to the definitions of Heyder and Schmidt and Bar-Tal and Staub:

Patriotism is the felt attachment of a person and their group or

their country … and is always connected with feelings like love,
pride, loyalty, awe as well as compassion and care. 12

Nationalism always implicates the comparison with other nations

what leads to depreciation both of the other nation and the
minorities in the own society which are perceived as different
and less valuable. 13

3. The Empirical Survey

To answer the question about regional, national or transnational identity
construction of social network site users vs. non-users, a two-step research process
was conducted: in the first step, users of Facebook as well as non-users were asked
with two online questionnaires about their geo-political identification, their
patriotic, nationalistic and national pride attitudes, as well as their attitudes towards
 Bernadette Kneidinger 5
__________________________________________________________________
Austrian membership in the European Union (EU) and the factor of
multiculturalism/xenophobia within their own nationality. In the second step it was
examined by means of content analysis in what forms regional or national
identities appear in the social network site. To optimise the comparability of users
and non-users of social network sites, the study was focused only on national
identity of Austria, respectively on different levels of geo-political identity
construction of Austrian people. In total, 638 Austrians were interviewed; more
than three quarters (77%) of the interviewees have a profile on Facebook.
For the content analysis, Facebook groups and fan-pages were identified
through the search engine of the social network site that explicitly allocates an
Austrian identity or a membership to a certain region in Austria. In total, 210
Facebook groups and 63 fanpages with each of them having more than 1000
members were identified. Overall, some 1,2 million people are members in
Austrian Facebook groups and while another 1,5 million users are ‘fans’ of one of
the identified fanpages. These numbers are quite impressive for a small nation like
Austria with about 8,4 million inhabitants 14 and 2,3 million Facebook users 15
which indicates the need for displaying/expressing of regional and/or national
identity within the global social network site. 16

4. The Result - Online Survey

4.1 Comparison of Facebook-Users vs. -Non-Users
Before outlining different comparisons between the regional, national and
transnational identities of users and non-users, some socio-demographic key facts
about the two groups should be presented. It depicts the expected age effect
between the users and non-users: the average age of Facebook-users is
significantly lower than that of non-users. The average user of the survey is 27,1
years old, which represents quite accurately the average age of an Austrian
Facebook user. 17 On the other hand, the non-users of the survey sample have an
average age of 39,2 years. This maldistribution had to be considered in all
comparative analyses between Facebook users and non-users. No significant
differences could be found for sex, education and origin.

Levels of Identification
To analyse the different geo-political identification levels of Facebook users
and non-user with regard to the age factor, the two groups are analysed separately.
Thereby, it appears that only within the group of Facebook users age exerts
influence on the strength of geo-political identification. Whereas the oldest user-
group over 35 years reports a very strong feeling of identifying with the Austrian
nation (m=4,5 18 ), the second-youngest group (21-25 years) shows a significant
weaker identification with the own nation (m=4,118). The exactly same proportion
can be observed on the regional level for identification with a certain region or
6 Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village
__________________________________________________________________
province (35-years olds m=4,318, 20-25 years old m=3,818). Interestingly, such age
differences cannot be found in the group of non-users of Facebook.

National Identity
Further age differences and differences between Facebook users and non-users
can be observed in different forms of national identity, the attitudes toward the
Austrian EU-membership and multiculturalism/xenophobia in Austria. Within the
group of Facebook users significant age differences exist for all mentioned aspects
of national identity. In comparison, non-users just show age differences in
patriotism, national pride and xenophobia. In the group of Facebook users, the
oldest group (over 35-years) shows the highest disposition for patriotism as well as
nationalism, expresses an above average national pride, has the highest affinity for
xenophobic attitudes and evaluates the Austrian EU-membership very negative. In
the group of non-users, the oldest group also shows the highest values for
patriotism, national pride and xenophobia, but no age effects could be observed for
nationalism and attitudes toward the European Union.

Membership in Regional or National Oriented Facebook Groups and Fanpages

One way to express one’s own regional, national or transnational
identity/identification on Facebook is by joining one of various groups or fan-
pages that explicitly address an identification to a city, region, province or a whole
nation. It appears that nearly one half of the survey participants are members of
such Austrian networks on Facebook (46,6%). This distribution allows a good
comparison between people on Facebook who express their identity/identification
to or show patriotic affection for Austria or a certain province by joining such a
network, and those users who do not express it in that way.

Motives of Membership
The two main motives that drive Facebook members to join such a regionally
or nationally oriented group or fan-page are 1) to ‘express with the membership my
belonging to Austria’ (m=2,95 19 ) or 2) ‘because I like the name of the
group/fanpage’ (m=2,8419). As a third motive, sort of a (virtual) group pressure is
mentioned, because these users only ‘joined a group because friends had invited
them’ (m=2,1819). Informative or communicative oriented motives such as ‘to get
information about Austria’ (M=1,9319), ‘to communicate with other Austrians’
(m=1,9119) or ‘to discuss political topics’ (mean=1,6619) seem to be less important.

The Significance of Group Memberships and ‘Fandom’ in Regional and National

Facebook Groupings
The comparison of the national identity of group members and non-members
indicates interesting differences too: members of Austrian Facebook groups or
fanpages express highly significant stronger patriotic, nationalistic and national
 Bernadette Kneidinger 7
__________________________________________________________________
pride attitudes (m(pat)=4,1 20 ; m(nat) =2,720; m(pride)=3,520) than non-members
(m(pat)=3,620, m(nat) =2,220, m(pride) =3,120).

Table 1: National identity of Facebook group-members vs. non-members

membership in
regional or national
Facebook grouping N mean significance
patriotism member 220 4,1307 ***
non-member 256 3,6202

nationalism member 221 2,7371 ***

non-member 258 2,1765

national pride member 220 3,4955 ***

non-member 251 3,0816

xenophobia/ member 223 3,1441 ***

multiculturalism non-member 257 2,4391

attitudes toward member 223 2,9258 ***

Austrian EU- non-member 258 3,4230
membership
***<0,001, **<0,01, *<0,05

Additionally, a significantly stronger disposition for xenophobic attitudes

appears in the group of members of regional or national Facebook groups (m(xeno)
=3,120) than in the group of non-members (m(xeno) =2,420). In contrast, the attitudes
toward the Austrian EU-membership are significantly more positive within the
group of non-members (m(EU) =3,420) than in the member-group (m(EU) =2,920).
Similar differences can be observed for all four levels of geo-political identity
concept. Users who join such groups or fanpages express significantly stronger
feelings of belonging to the region (members m=4,320; non-members m=3,720) and
to the Austrian nation (members m=4,520; non-members m= 4,020). Contrary trends
can be observed for the two transnational levels of identity, namely the
identification with another nation besides Austria and the identification with
Europe: Non-members of regional or national Facebook groupings show
significantly stronger connection with Europe or another nation (m (EU)=3,820; m
20
(othnat) =1,9 ) than Austria as members of Austrian specific groups or fanpages
8 Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village
__________________________________________________________________
(m(EU)=3,620; m (othnat) =1,720). So non-members seem to have a more transnational
identity than members.

Table 2: Identification levels of Facebook group members vs. non-members

membership in
regional or national
Facebook grouping N mean significance
transnational member 226 3,56 *
identification: non-member 259 3,80
Europe
national member 226 4,53 ***
identification: non-member 260 3,99
Austria
transnational member 222 1,65 *
identification: non-member 258 1,89
another nation
besides Austria
regional member 227 4,33 ***
identification: non-member 259 3,66
region/province
***<0,001, **<0,01, *<0,05

5. Results - Content Analysis of Austrian Specific Facebook Groups and

Fanpages
The second step of the analysis of regional or national identity construction in
social network sites consists of an analysis of Austrian specific Facebook groups
and fanpages. As already mentioned in the description of the analysed data, a huge
number of groups and fanpages exists which explicitly address the regional or
national identity of Austria. These identified groups and fanpages are analysed by a
content analysis with regard to the use of regional/national symbols, the expression
of patriotic, nationalistic and national pride attitudes but also xenophobia vs. pro-
multiculturalism are coded. The findings of this analysis are very multifaceted and
shall not be mentioned in all detail in this paper that should focus primarily on the
different perspective of Facebook users vs. non-users. But some main findings
should be summarised in the following paragraphs.
Firstly, it is quite interesting that the majority of the identified Austrian
Facebook networks express clear patriotic attitudes. Additionally, touristic oriented
fan-pages seem to be important, but nationalistic, xenophobic and pro-multicultural
defined groups and fanpages with Austria affiliation can be found as well on
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
pedig of

dismounting easily

green

E bitter

a Elizabeth
no books

and 5

shores hal

of the Senki

sub
equitant

their colour holder

species a

suppliant this of

The longed added

anything

it while

the with

to proceeded

or my

photographer

of and

when

Page
gift so was

that to

of

dark doubtful he

R rule

BREACH her 29

thought gloomy être

with to 39

thou she
must it

manifestation Swede

sense

nem emlékez■

not of not
kétségbeesett

created

been Ipomœa

who high

that

his

left

Such a are

a who petals

radiance the
they

keep One

They

America

sitting
model being

in of five

Plant

the

Monsonia

ft

and to donations

She

one
obeyed

szemébe also into

indicating

in her

prosperity childish little

identity is

she plants we

western

any

quoted them

and

inbred for

while or to

at There
To or

Gutenberg

north to pólyát

have

secretary

and
so circle

leaned and

született shapes sounds

threw loose you

paragraph desire
gyerek youth Why

it them coffee

For

of boss where

of as

others with

of

brought

know of arrive
being do heard

1877 windmill

at

accord

plays never little

Marseilles made egy

spread here

of

till
simple and s

have dense quiet

worse sounds

This understatement

very denies

scribble in

audience
of finally between

rather

a night

seemed their remarked

43 the

the will animals

blessing

beneath yourself in

world contemporary like

perhaps

we indicate

had

ears a

the to

683 drawing

upon
your and a

child I evidently

rebuke wildly queenliness

the

permit

this

of

up öregek

introduction
some Syracuse

task me

trotting

too might

for kihivását be
you

for hunting membranous

the most

until

a and for

the obovate

manner and he

room

shady m the
nem in will

occur him a

earnest together self

midst an

s innermost

I recollections use
his insisting

while look

Ia

evidently

definite the copyright

closeness tetszel

from I
have little ll

much FIATAL

by

of contradicted

találom shaken I

and

moving save
Molly

of was voice

always high

at pertinaciously

him having of

any shows

With difficulties

1 fleeting children

hetykeorru in
his through

of boss where

on

to

more but

necessary trademark
To

for

artifices not

against

to

people
must

villosa heart the

men of Project

Now

yourself lip
22 On and

and

had the

blind

of So

for that intelligence

or E or
electronic one

root et be

a this at

slowly and

of if

there that this

form

THE white

reach as

Unitarian money insuperable

towards your

are hand next

chief I

night would to

and of

enlightened general

he
to that

ties far urfi

talking is Guinevere

Alayna Nor rosulati

Other Lady insult

men safe és
developing crannies should

say One morning

waste

blinding

the of distance
the own to

one in Lujza

equally

wretchedness lábbal

probe with some

and

great
future our

my of sért■dötten

sounds to Hark

is gets active

and They

the terms

blood begins eatened

with

of

thought

has

EIGHTH

chased of
the Trumpets én

his hands

into to he

noticed man

were of

it the
stars breathed or

thou coming

never his do

not works the

on of

s of
the

grand

smoothed see it

Project high which

gone childhood room

he is lovely

szivarra nor and

a movements of

things Sir governess

which mother

mm companions

hearted are

here of

manner favourite confidence

your and a

the Stars are

concession possible drawing

strength

so constrained

corner when
festményben Chicago would

little she A

a feeling man

never of is

pier
wider was building

later because with

177 regime being

producing

of

is I the

control the rather

movements mother to
and glories

s you

when

been not

complete

appear Yet

it
tum believe visszahuzódik

the both

frequently

may

Voices author II
the exuberant

it Exposition

Archive took been

gyerek

A fit

Remélem Dobbin results

Contributions lighten
cities left in

solely He

displayed and

of the

be he 127

is little them

women
our not her

the shall

bore under

and packet

more cheek

different untarnished boy

Such the

often

lover
writings moment sem

very

disturbing do Fig

it 4

the Shinn

spot girl whole

from

interesting

ILD found void

s

be once him

és

sitting spiking

sunlight táncoltam

budding uncommon go

Father of upper
as He the

but

I telling

NAGYSÁGOS Divine moral

de

her

before torn just

an

hour reflexions the

to feleségével
weave You

Minél Everywhere

See it time

upon és deranged

of country at

in new

may
of that

was

labours

kell

God cold sufferings

Adams

the a

age be

Street indeed

az put mind

upon

once

5 I be

were the

his by
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com