Memory and Digital Media: Six Dynamics of the Globital Memory Field

Abstract

Neda Agha Soltan, a young Iranian woman, was shot dead on June 22, 2009 on the streets of Tehran during protests following the Iranian June elections. Her death was digitally witnessed by a friend nearby using a camera phone: the data then went viral. He emailed the data to another friend in the Netherlands. The camera phone video was uploaded to a number of websites; within hours still images from the video were captured, printed out, and used in protests at her killing and at the results of the Iranian elections in cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, and Vienna. The next day, Neda’s dying images were broadcast by major television companies and made worldwide headlines including newspapers in Britain, the US, and Australia. The image of Neda’s face, covered in blood, was recolored, reconfigured, and reassembled across multiple media forms. The witness video prompted the creation of a number of memorial websites, a Twitter icon, a number of Facebook groups, two Wiki pages, memorial art works, and songs commemorating Neda’s life and death. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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