TY - JOUR
T1 - In digital remembrance
T2 - Vernacular memory and the rhetorical construction of web memorials
AU - Hess, Aaron
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2007 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2007/9
Y1 - 2007/9
N2 - In this study, I examine four web memorials to explore the material construction of memory on the internet. Using Blair's arguments about the rhetorical materiality of memorials, I seek to understand the vernacular responses to 9/11 in the form of individually crafted web memorials. I argue that vernacular web memorials contain dual rhetorical functions of being memorials themselves as well as the tributary markers found at other national monuments. Additionally, webmastered memorials highlight the vernacular strategies of narrative memory, which recall the individual responses and calls to action after 9/11. The internet both fosters the use of vernacular commemoration and hampers it through the use of commercially registered domain names. First, web memorials assist in the creation of vernacular commemorative communities in the form of web-rings. Second, however, the durability of the digital monuments is challenged by the very form they take due to their potentially ephemeral nature.
AB - In this study, I examine four web memorials to explore the material construction of memory on the internet. Using Blair's arguments about the rhetorical materiality of memorials, I seek to understand the vernacular responses to 9/11 in the form of individually crafted web memorials. I argue that vernacular web memorials contain dual rhetorical functions of being memorials themselves as well as the tributary markers found at other national monuments. Additionally, webmastered memorials highlight the vernacular strategies of narrative memory, which recall the individual responses and calls to action after 9/11. The internet both fosters the use of vernacular commemoration and hampers it through the use of commercially registered domain names. First, web memorials assist in the creation of vernacular commemorative communities in the form of web-rings. Second, however, the durability of the digital monuments is challenged by the very form they take due to their potentially ephemeral nature.
KW - Commemoration
KW - Materiality
KW - Public memory
KW - Rhetoric
KW - September 11
KW - Web memorials
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34548205238&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=34548205238&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0163443707080539
DO - 10.1177/0163443707080539
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34548205238
SN - 0163-4437
VL - 29
SP - 812
EP - 830
JO - Media, Culture and Society
JF - Media, Culture and Society
IS - 5
ER -