Remembering Political Crises Alone and Together : Media Memories of the Lebanese Diaspora in North America

Memory has become one of the most vibrant areas of research within the field of media studies. Due to the technological advancements of the past two decades, our media consumption has developed globally. Collective memory and media memory scholars argue that our memories are increasingly influenced by media as well as our surrounding social groups. This study focuses on the media memories of the Lebanese diaspora in North America concerning two significant Lebanese political events. The main research questions are: What do the Lebanese living in North America remember about the two events? What is the role of media in the way they remember the events? This thesis also explores two sub-research questions: How do the participants’ social groups influence the way the individuals remember the events? How does their media consumption affect their memories? The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with participants from two different age groups in the Lebanese diaspora in North America. The data was analyzed with thematic analysis, and the findings showed that participants remembered very specific details about the events from what they remembered seeing on the TV news. There were some noticeable differences between the memories of the two age groups. This could be contributed to the fact that for the younger participants, their families and other social groups affected their memories of the events. This pointed in the direction that their memories were influenced by the traumatic significance of these events for their social groups. There were types of memories evident throughout the analysis, which were categorized under the concepts of postmemory and flashbulb memories. Essentially, these memories also had influences rooted in social groups and/or media sources for the participants