Wikipedia: remembering in the digital age.

Abstract

Collective memories are usually sanctioned by ruling elites, who determine the types of memory that should be remembered along with how they should be remembered. With the emergence of the Internet, individuals have taken a more active role in preserving and re-presenting the past, thereby opening up a fertile terrain for the study of non-official collective memories. As an open-source website, Wikipedia has the potential to broaden the range of memories accessible on a global platform, memories that may or may not be sanctioned by elites. This thesis seeks to examine the ways national events are remembered on a global platform such as Wikipedia, and the implications of having that borderless public space for the representation and remembrance of events. Using textual analysis, this paper first examines the ways in which the New York Times and Xinhua News Agency reported on and interpreted the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, and how the protests were subsequently remembered in both presses in the 21st century. This paper then compares the official memory of the protests in the two presses with its public memory, as represented by the ways in which contributors on Wikipedia remember the protests. Findings point to Wikipedia as a site of struggle over the hierarchy of memories, serving as a mirror into the present social order and power in our global society. The interaction between alternative and opposing memories on Wikipedia both reveal and is affected by the differences in how the protests were framed and made meaningful only to those who belong to certain cultural groups. This then calls into question the possibility of having a wider range of memories that encompasses the un-reported and underreported memories of an iconic event in the digital age.