Medier och minnen

The rapid technological developments of the new millennium have presented exciting challenges to the well-established field of cultural memory studies. Today, it behoves us analyse the ways in which digital systems make it possible to store, copy, and decentralize memories, making them increasingly accessible on the Internet. The digital media offer gateways to the past that are more comprehensive as well as free and open. The cultural artefacts, pictures, and documents that in previous eras were exclusively a matter for libraries, archives, and museums are now increasingly and at an accelerating rate becoming available online. The aim of this article is twofold. It introduces a new field of cultural research, one that lies on the border between historical memory studies and media and communication research. It then argues for the importance of a media history angle on the subject of media and memory, an angle that recognizes that the media not only mirrors but also shapes our culture. This article raises the question of whether we as historians in fact alter our definitions of 'memory', 'storage', and 'archive' in the context of digital media. And, if so, what the consequences might be for historical memory studies