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ased on interest (researchers, fans, etc.) which presumably preclude the shortfalls of offline
community (including inequality, segregation, racism, etc.). In reality, however, it is clear that the
digital technologies and media are no panacea for the pertaining social and political troubles of
humankind. Instead, the shortfalls of offline communication and sociability willingly migrate
online. And so are power relations in the field of memory and remembering, with financially welloff
institutions producing enviable (if often territory-restricted or payable) online collections of
historical knowledge. However, the potentialities of DME in terms of free access and
manageability of technology nevertheless facilitate unprecedented development in terms of
vernacular memory and remembering which invariantly elude the limits and ideological
constraints of institutionalised en-memorisation and remembering. 103
Regardless of power relations migrating online and of the fact that the offline interpersonal,
professional, ideological, political and cultural orientations and beliefs have increasing online
presence and relevance, the difference between DME strategies of representing vernacular
histories, memories and remembering differs significantly from anything in the past. The effect
and implications remain to be seen, but the media objects we have in front of us (if so we click)
deserve thorough treatment. First of all because such practices of remembering empower large
numbers of people to create and co-create memories, to effectively contribute to a commemorating
community. And second, because such strategies and practices of appropriating the past open up
important questions about the status of interpretive authority and questions about the status of
national histories.
The way the past is dealt with online is distinctly characterised by, as explained above, the
convergence of image, text, sound and video and by the related fusion and redefinition of narrative
techniques, and by remediation of various media. At the same time, different or modified
techniques and strategies of establishing, maintaining and promulgating such representations are
being developed. In light of remediation and media convergence, this significantly affects the
conceptions of space, time, memory and remembering, representation of the past, identity,
individuality-collectivity, and the closely related sense of belonging, credibility, immersion,
interactivity, and participation that the digital media enable.
Spatial practice has become a practice of digital interaction where connectivity can be established
without physical interaction with the ‗real‘ space or people. The traveller/internet user remains
seated in front of the screen and meet other travellers/users in geo-remote places. Nevertheless,
103 On vernacular memory in digital environments see Aaron Hess, ―In Digital Remembrance: Vernacular memory
and the Rhetorical Construction of Web Memorials,‖ Media Culture and Society 5, 2007, 812—830.
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