What role do photographs and other visual media play in shaping perceptions of conflict? Do news media have a responsibility to ensure future generations ‘never forget’? How have digital platforms helped shape collective memories of traumatic events?

These were among the many issues discussed at ‘Media and Conflict Memory’, an IAMCR sponsored workshop held at the University of Glasgow in November 2023. This event brought together a diverse group of researchers to discuss the role of media in remembering conflict.

Day 1 saw the majority of papers presented remotely. Panels covered topics such as the use of X (formerly Twitter) for memory activism in Zimbabwe, how young Nigerians used Facebook to document police brutality, and Gazan citizens’ use of smartphones to share experiences of military occupation. A session dedicated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine then provided new insight into how memes and digital technologies represented a virtual battleground in the ongoing conflict.

The first in-person panel focused on media representations of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A recurring theme here was how photographs of atrocities such as Bloody Sunday had become used to support different narratives on the conflict. Context was provided on how a BBC Radio series had been developed to help bridge the competing narratives on Irish history and the origins of the Troubles. There was also evidence presented showing how popular memes were used both constructively and divisively to discuss the region’s troubled past.

We finished the day with a Q&A session about the documentary Freedom to Run featuring filmmaker Cairsti Russell and hosted by John Coster. The film focuses on two running groups, one based in Palestine and the other from Glasgow, as they participate in marathons in their respective countries. Several clips were shown illustrating the restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including several unsettling scenes showing settler communities harassing and recording the running groups as they toured Hebron. The conversations afterwards focused on the experiences of the filmmakers, the challenges of documenting their experiences when faced with such repression, and the feedback received during recent screenings.

Day 2 saw the focus switch more to innovative methods of exploring conflict memory. This included how researchers used Telegram to examine Russian-Ukrainian battles over contested heritage sites, YouTube videos and collective memories of the Greek civil war, and two papers exploring colonialism and migration memory activism in Portugal. A multisensory presentation showcased how horseshoe cartography could be used to map conflict sites through film, text and collages. It was striking how many of the examples discussed in these panels were under-researched. For example, the Dersim massacre in Turkey has lived on through personal photographic archives while images of Nepti the Tiger, a British military mascot during the Malayan insurgency in the 1950s, remain long forgotten in museum archives.

There were a few common themes from the workshop I wish to end on. First, many of the presenters reflected on their proximity to the conflicts they studied. Many felt a moral duty to provide evidence about how these were memorialised and passed down to future generations. Second, there was the lack of a fixed understanding of conflict represented in both traditional and digital media platforms. There will always be a section of the audience who choose not to agree with dominant readings of these conflict memory materials. Finally, while the digitization of conflict memory was viewed as generally positive in terms of accessibility, there were concerns that traumatic incidents were constantly relitigated and weaponised by those with no direct lived experience of them. In this respect, both traditional and digital media often highlight the lack of shared narratives on war and conflicts of the past.

See the full workshop programme

First published: 7 December 2023

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