UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

eoin79 314
Needless to say, different people invest the video with different interpretations/meanings; it seems
that a topic/historical period/mobilisatory ideology as it can be presented in DME (with fusing
audiovisual ad textual levels) is in fact very applicable, via individual ‗personalisation,‘ to many
different cultural, historical, political contexts. Such digital memorials, despite and because of
affective reactions they (may) trigger, transcend political borders and to some extent offer a
platform for maintaining international, occasionally cosmopolitan networks.
One of the most disturbing songs ever,and with good reason.I grew up listening to this
song and have to say it is one of my favourites,but it does teach us about things in the
past(it is based on true events)and I for one hope this song and its meaning never
disappear.
toohottie001 315
To bring focus back on Yugoslavia: despite the perils of potential lingering on the past, which is
the usual reproach of anti-nostalgics and nationalist elites, the fact remains that the quest for
normalcy, i.e. the desire to reassemble the transition- and war-torn historical, is an action that can
also facilitate an engaged take on the past, the present and the future.
Conclusion
The vernacular digital memorials are not necessarily intent to cause heated debate neither do they
aspire to give professional historical accounts. Rather, they are made-public individual
interventions which, once posted, elicit various kinds of responses and, by means of participation,
also co-creation. These interventions are then a good indication of 1) the diversity of individual
interpretations of histories 2) the diversity of feelings, personal views and beliefs invested into
such storytelling and the related power of mediated content (4MO) to mobilise, once made public,
affect.
And it seems that YouTube vernacular digital storytelling dealing with the Yugoslav past is a
good/popular tool to do that. True, the audience is necessarily dispersed and often marginal in
terms of potential grass-roots action, but it is also around such (numerous, basic in terms of
narrative techniques deployed) digital memorials that the shared knowledge spaces and spaces for
314 Ibid.
315 Ibid.
160