The aim of the scientific network was to explore, systematize, and develop the nascent field of communication memory studies. It elaborated its fundaments in different areas of social sciences and cultural studies, maps its pivotal areas of inquiry as well as its analytical perspectives. The results were be published in a handbook, disseminated through an open access website, presented in an international conference, and translated into the program modules of an international graduate school. Thus, it addressed different disciplinary academic publics and stakeholder groups in public education, museums, and heritage industries. The network fostered the translocal, issue-driven cooperation in order to survey and compare the disparate theoretical and empirical strands of research on cultural memory and social remembering in communication studies. They were critically reviewed, conjointly documented, and further examined as the constitutive elements of the emerging area of communication memory studies. Due to the variety of paradigms and approaches it was necessary to work across disciplines and interact especially with the social sciences and cultural studies as well as to take an international perspective.
The network was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – project number 389196641/PE 2436/1-1. More about the network can be found here
Selected project publications:
Pentzold, Christian; Lohmeier, Christine; & Birkner, Thomas (2024): Communicative Remembering: Revisiting a Basic Mnemonic Concept. In: Memory, Mind & Media, 2:e9.
Netzwerk Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erinnerungsforschung Eds. (2023): Handbuch kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erinnerungsforschung. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Pentzold, Christian & Sommer, Vivien (2021): Remembering John/Ivan Demjanjuk: Inclusive and Exclusive Frames in Cosmopolitan Holocaust Discourse. In: International Communication Gazette, 83(7), 685-707.