A blast from the past: memories, social media, and peace movement

Abstract

Engaging in activities that allows social movement actors to share their memories with others helps keep the movement alive after achieving immediate goals. Many studies have focused on sharing movement memories situated within face to face settings. This study expands such a focus by investigating how the actors share the memories on new media platforms. Based on interview and observation data collected from peace movement actors in Ambon, Indonesia, this study found that Facebook, together with messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, facilitated the peace actors to reminisce their memories and recalibrate them in a post-movement phase. Hence, keeping the actors connected over time. Such a post-movement dynamic was feasible in part because of the presence of actors who actively posted meaningful events that triggered the other actors’ recollections, resulting in conversational threads, ideas for subsequent movements, and face-to-face meetings. The present findings have the potential to unfold nuances surrounding the continuity of new media enabled social movements.

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