UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

dismissed as a-political. And even when the profile is declared to be on a mission to restore or
reinvigorate Yugoslavia (at least in certain aspect), the actual response rarely goes beyond ―Yes,
let‘s do it!‖ The appeal and outreach of any ‗real‘ action deriving from online initiatives is fairly
difficult to assess. In sum, the posts, comments, responses to videos, news etc. are to a large extent
affective, particularly in cases of nationalist outbursts and hatred.
However, in line with Svašek‘s argument, 404 it is imprudent to strip the emotional/affective of any
political potential. The many examples of exchange in debates on the SFR Jugoslavija profile can
by the tone and rhetoric be said to not exert much substance in terms of political argumentation.
Mostly, the comments/debates are characterised by a strong personal imprint and in this respect
also quite inflexible in terms of amending/changing beliefs. In many ways what radiates through
many comments, not least because of the invasive curatorship, is in fact onesidedness,
occasionally intolerance in defending all things Yugoslav. What is more, the strictly policed sites
often seem to become a refuge for ‗blind followers‘ leaving little room for constructive debate. In
fact, whereas it seems that many of these sites do (or at least could) harbour a potential for an
insightful discussion on the future of Yugoslavism, or at least for renovation of the (war)torn
cultural and social Yuniverse, the reality is that all too often the debates slide from passive
adoration and glorification of the past, and into mutual accusations. From this perspective it is
quite understandable that the ‗translation into offline‘ is far away.
Still, despite this relative scarcity of ‗constructive‘ ‗New Yugoslavism,‘ what remains an
important contribution of this and similar digital endeavours is in their providing a virtual space
where offline practices, usually limited to relatively closed circles, can find public space for
externalisation/voicing. True, these online spaces breed similar types of exclusivism and
‗enclosedness.‘ With the difference, however, in that the communities thus formed facilitate
enhanced instantaneity of networked extensions of public cyberspaces of memory. Interlinking
between different sites in terms of content, and between different internet media (e.g. Nova
Jugoslavija Facebook profile is connected with the website and it also has a YouTube channel),
and linking to external sites provides for constructing a larger digital memorial landscape. Debates
are complemented by debates/video responses on linked sites thus reaching various segments of
potential users.
Now before I conclude, a few words are order on the relationship between text and audiovisuals.
As mentioned above, it is fairly clear that it is via text that content acquires most ‗legible‘ form
and presentation of political aspects of New Yugoslavism is most elaborate precisely in textual
404 Maruška Svašek, ―Introduction,‖ 7.
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