Digital resilience and civic engagement : the case of France after the terror attack of 14 July 2016

The traumatic event has this peculiar faculty to activate a strong memory experience. The people can exactly know what they did a day when a terror attack happened. There is a collective memory process which is not limited to witnesses nor bystanders. The aim of the project is to analyze live memories on Web 2.0 and study how social links are built under these circumstances. If the traditional media base their work on digital live experiences, it can be worth analyzing how these pieces of memory are reintegrated into a collective storytelling process. The mediatic echo is prevailing in the collection of these pieces of memory. The use of images (iconic forms) / symbols / texts is important to deal with collective trauma. The authorities elaborated specific codes of conduct with an attention to the victims, which includes categories of people more or less concerned by the attacks. Evaluating the traumatic impact is the most difficult task of official authorities. We would like to analyze the collective integration of digital pieces of memory by medias around the terror attacks in Nice. The acceleration of violence, the over flow of images created a feeling of brutality. This is why it is all the more important to question how the authorities react by producing a form of digital resilience. We would like to know whether an official discourse on victims reactivates feelings of solidarity and an identification to the core values of society or if it encourages a form of disruption of the social link (hatred, creation of scapegoat). The social networks will be the main references as you can have an exploration of different connections and transfers of data, information, fake news, feelings of fears. A database constituted of accounts explicitly expressing a feeling or a reaction will be built. Joint Conference of two ECREA Sections: Communication and Democracy; and Media Industries and Cultural Production.