Commemoration leaders: cultural memory of a city in the digital age

Abstract

• Urban commemoration is the most important determinant of social reality, influencing the processes of constructing urban identity and the images of modern cities. The article is devoted to the analysis of the commemoration leaders, who have acquired a specific nature in the digital age, causing new aspects in the processes of generating and transmitting the cultural memory of the city. The article shows how the structures of collective memory are now reproduced in digital communications, and those who produce digital content on the Internet (bloggers, active users of social networks, content creators in video messaging services) are becoming leaders of commemoration. Commemoration leaders carry out the reproduction of potential or maintenance of relevant layers of memory, influencing the content and selection of those episodes of memory that are to be remembered. Commemoration leaders create a new, soft mosaic of memory, woven from reviews, publications, videos, posts in digital media that transform personal information into collective information. The modern memory of the city lives in digital content as a collage woven from different fragments of the city's past “remembered” in the network, whereas the city's commemorative practices with VR/AR effects deepen its “imagination” and reinforce identification codes. Meanwhile, the author reveals the features of the digital representation of the city, which complicate the processes of commemoration and are accompanied by the erosion of the cultural memory of the city, which should be taken into account when researching collective memory and developing strategies for its management.