Open AccessRemembering COVID-19: memory, crisis, and social media
Author(s) -
Tracy Adams,
Sara Kopelman
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
media, culture and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.673
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1460-3675
pISSN - 0163-4437
DOI - 10.1177/01634437211048377
Subject(s) - memorialization , social media , dynamism , statutory law , covid-19 , media studies , sociology , political science , public relations , law , medicine , physics , disease , pathology , quantum mechanics , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memory-making endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and “presentism” introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of commemoration are shifting.