How are mediated memories brought into being? In other words, how can we
understand the ways personal and public memories are enacted in environments that
have become increasingly digitally networked? Following this fundamental question for
current interrogations of the entanglement of media and memory, we first develop
a concept of mediated memory work. Instituting experiences and senses of the past,
these time- and space-bound efforts interweave with arrangements of people and their
social relations, cultural discourses, objects and media environments. Capitalizing on
such an understanding of mediated memory work, the article demonstrates how and to
what ends the enactment of memories can be empirically studied by using the example
of the Cuban-American community in Miami. In particular, building on participant
observation, in-depth interviews and media ethnography, we outline practices, cultural
artefacts, communal bonds, compassionate relations and a media manifold that have
been employed by different segments of a diasporic collective in shaping how the
country of origin and the exile is to be remembered. Proof version (with a few corrections) here. For the final version, please refer to the journal’s website here