Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory [1 ed.] 9781848880900, 9789004403413

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Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory

Critical Issues Issues Critical Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Daniel Riha Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

A Critical Issues research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ The Cyber Hub ‘Digital Memories’

2011

Navigating Landscapes of Mediated Memory

Edited by

Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-090-0 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

vii

PART 1 Social Networking and its Impact on Memories Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village. The Significance of Regional, National and Transnational Identities in Social Network Sites Bernadette Kneidinger

3

Traumatic Event and Digital Memories: Remembering and Processing the Earthquake in Abruzzi Alessandra Micalizzi

15

PART 2 Transformation and Re-Interpretation of Memories in New Media Memories about Socialism into the Internet Forum of Bulgarian Emigrants in United Kingdom Mila Maeva

29

Remixes and Appropriations of Socialist Legacy Online Valentina Gueorguieva

39

0B

PART 3 Platforms and Applications YouTube and Post-Yugoslav Anti-Fascism Martin Pogačar

49

How to Explore a Digitalised Autobiographical Corpus: The Case of Frantext Véronique Montémont

57

1B

2B

PART 4 Digital Memories and Cultural Heritage Identifying Challenges in Museums’ Online Communities Merja Nummi and Leila Stenfors 3B

69

PART 5 Digital Horizons of Remembering Wars and Conflicts From World War 2 to World War 2.0: Commemorating

81

War and Holocaust in Poland on the Internet Dieter De Bruyn 4B

Memorial of Deportation Philippe Campays, Stephanie Liddicoat and Matt Randell

91

Web Wars, or Russia’s and Ukraine’s Digital Languages of Memory Ellen Rutten

99

5B

PART 6 Past and New Architectures for Memory Metadata and New Architectures of Memory in Programmable Environments Carlos Henrique Falci

111

Blended Memory: The Changing Balance of Technologically-Mediated Semantic and Episodic Memory Tim Fawns

121

Interface Archaeology in Simulation Culture Seppo Kuivakari

133

6B

7B

PART 7 New Media Formats Retrogaming Community Memory and Discourses of Digital History Jaakko Suominen

145

PART 8 Media Archeologies Audiovirtual Oblivion: Media Archaeology of Early Finnish Music Web and its Vanishing Janne Mäkelä and Jaakko Suominen

157

A Community Kept Alive through Memory: Preserving the Essence of the British Working-Men’s Club Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

167

8B

Introduction Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart The papers in this volume reflect the debates that progressed during the 3rd Global Conference on Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues, held as part of Cyber Hub activity in Prague, Czech Republic in March 2011. These edited draft papers make up an intriguing critical snapshot in advance of the final published texts. As has been evident since the first conference on Digital Memory, the development of new technologies for communication is inextricably tied to processes and practises of memory. The impact of our ongoing shift towards the digital is still playing out - where issues around persona, identity and context are fundamental to how we select to present ourselves in our increasingly online, socially-networked and global mesh of connections, confusions and potential contradictions. A key insight gained by the first conference was the acknowledgment that how we remember (and how we develop our practises of remembering) in the digital realm will most certainly have ‘... political [and] economic impact on contemporary society and...will be crucial for knowledge and power distribution in the future.’ 1 This is becoming more important and conferences such as this are vital to how we might begin to understand and act upon such knowledge - where society may be constantly (re)structured around notions of digital ‘remembering,’ both in terms of how we strategically look to archive ourselves and our own lives (long-term) and how we actively engage with practises of curation and communication in terms of our existence on an everyday basis. Such technological change is clearly and profoundly altering the relationship we can and do have with ourselves and, significantly, with each other. Our communal presentation of the self is a keystone for much of how we view and use networked technologies in contemporary life. This notion of the social web - with ourselves at the centre - pervades all manner of how we work and live in twentyfirst century consumer cultures. The performative connotations - where life is documented for ‘audiences’ of varying makeup, reach and response - shapes production and consumption of ourselves and the memories we select for public broadcast. Our negotiation of such strategies for performance involve complex sets of selection and deletion, where the fluidity of data aids the purge and/or purification of potentially ruinous or embarrassing or uncomfortable or inappropriate memories. The consequences of such acts when building databases for future memorial are still to be formulated and felt. Such ‘functionalisation’ of memory (as outlined in the first conference) acts to reconfigure an essential aspect of human behaviour, a streamlining of memory in accordance with, and as a consequence of, new strategies for social interaction and

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Introduction

__________________________________________________________________ communication. We can rewrite popular archives of ourselves and our actions instantly and permanently. A by-product of the all-encompassing power and potential for harvesting this newly processed data is the value it may go on to have when harvested in the name of market research. Our ease with the relationships being built between ourselves and those who would look to benefit from information we are making freely available might only be tested through the lens of memory. We are, perhaps, in a process of almost continual reconstruction of ourselves, with each tooled for, and tied to, a particular outlet or aperture; configured to meet the requirements of particular technologies and contexts. To what extent, however, do we actively consume memory (and identity)? Or do we passively take part in an imagined, consensual, hallucinatory ‘experience’ of engagement which looks to convince us that we are making decisions that are not - in fact - ours? The notion of a relationship between memory and ideology, therefore, comes into play - particularly when technology and cultures of communication are taken into account. We co-opt media to capture and act out narratives which we see fit to document for future consumption (by others). Whilst the raft of papers presented at the conference were each unique in their approach and specific focus, it was clear that some common themes united this colourful spectrum of research on Digital Memory. The impact of social media and how it can - and is - shape community memory is particularly prominent and threads through a number of the papers. The dominance of ideas of the social and of place via digital media is becoming ever more critical in terms of our understanding of how we come to view ourselves and how we might further understand memory and the ways in which we might and do remember. The range and potential diversity of the papers - due to the deliberately contrived interdisciplinary nature of such an event as DM3 - reveals and allows for a sharing of potential methodologies, approaches and outcomes. Given the last conference was held within a broader context - with cybercultures - it is interesting and stimulating to see the directions that scholars of digital memory are now currently taking: where a new focus upon the specifics of DM are given time and space to breathe. Some crossovers with cybercultures of course remain, particularly in discussion of how categories such as national identity might be documented and memorialised via new technologies and where the fragmentary consequences of such a shift are, ironically, playing a part in the erosion of familiar and long-standing notions such as nationhood. A swing towards the local is one notable symptom of the ways in which new technologies for storage and dissemination of memory are altering self-perception and orientation between and within the physical and emotional landscapes of the individual and communal. Where communities of place are being reconfigured, transformed and in some cases smashed, the need for particular cultures of memory are often most acute.

Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

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__________________________________________________________________ This traumatic deterritorialisation - and its consequences upon landscape and the politics of how we are to interact with place and people - are played out most explicitly in forms of, and forums for, digital memory. The often fraught decisions involved in how we choose to remember can lead to tensions centring around policies or strategies for selection and how such narratives might then be constructed. How we choose to deal with the pragmatics of how contemporary technologies facilitate memorialisation is becoming more pressing since the pace of technological change shows no sign of abating. Changes in technology also present new possibilities and opportunities for both the presentation and consumption of memory - our ability to drift through ever-new digital environments of on-the-fly memories grants us the ability to construct, reconstruct and tear down long-standing architectures through which memory has been communicated. We are also developing capabilities for creatively excavating communities via memory: where reminiscence and storytelling become our means of navigating people and places at points of near-disappearance. Social networking has had a significant impact on many aspects of peoples online practices including the way memories are created and shared among users of such networks. The social networks have allowed us to digitise many aspects of life from the personal to the communal, a sense of who we are offline is extended into this online space where we represent our identity whether personal, regional, national or global. This transnational identity is explored in Bernadette Kneidinger’s paper. She looks at how users express the differing levels of identity, regional, national and global in the context of social media, specifically Facebook. Group and fanpages seem to allow users to express these levels of identity, through membership, conversation and sharing of symbols and pictures, each one of these interactions reinforces remembrance. Rather than erode the importance of regional or national identity, Bernadette’s research suggests social networks allow for an integration of these through digital memories that could be classified as collective memory. Members of social networks are quite active and engaged with memory through their interaction with the medium, this activity is memory creation on many levels. Users are given the opportunity to participate in the production of digital memories. In her paper, ‘Traumatic Event and Digital Memories: Remembering and Processing the Earthquake in Abruzzi,’ Alessandra Micalizzi argues that this has democratised memory. Participation is of huge importance in relation to the memory of collective catastrophes such as the earthquake in Abruzzi, the act of memory creation can be seen as a way of expressing solidarity. She challenges us with the question of whether these memories are truly collective memory, although they are created and shared by collections of users. If digital memories are considered to be collective or not they cannot be divorced from the individual and the personal. Although some material may be derived from sources not personal to the user, the memories have the potential to

x

Introduction

__________________________________________________________________ be intertwined with the personal. Mila Maeva’s paper, ‘Memories about Socialism into the Internet Forum of Bulgarian Emigrants in United Kingdom,’ focuses on Bulgarian imminent expression of identity through social forums. The connections with Bernadette Kneidinger’s paper on national identity are obvious; however, in the case of this diaspora nostalgia for the past plays a key role in facilitating users in memory creation. These memories become personal to users through the acceptance by others in this social space, highlighting the importance of interaction between people in these networks and the role it plays in transforming material. The interaction between users is communication, and the digital memories that are created and shared are a part of this communication process. Valentina Gueorguieva argues in her paper that digital memory can be compared to Jan Assmann’s definition of communicative memory. It is personal and subjective, selection plays a crucial role for users who arrange and re-arrange memory according to their emotions. The paper examines the memory-making practiced by Bulgarian users in relation to socialism, and it is these practices of remembering online by creating digital memorials that can be seen as communicative memory. This online communicative memory cannot be abstracted from the offline and must be considered in relation to offline memory practice. What are the offline implications of the online action of memory-making, do they translate into offline environments and actions? Martin Pogačar’s paper looks at memory-making facilitated through platforms such as YouTube, the online is seen as an extension of the offline, enhancing the immediacy of remembering. Although the initial impetus for the creation of an online memory such as a video on YouTube may be personal, the fact that it is shared on a public site where others can express opinion makes it very public. The digital memory is often a trigger for a wider spectrum of memories that emerge as a response. Responses create debate and trigger other memories, Pogačar echoes the point Micalizzi’s paper purported that user participation democratised memory. Social networks can be perceived as places for democratic memory creation but there are other sources of memories online that are curated. Véronique Montémont gives a detailed account of one such source in her paper ‘How to Explore a Digitalised Autobiographical Corpus: The case of Frantext.’ Montémont details how curating memories needs to be well considered in order to give an unbiased and relevant corpus. There is an argument that archives such as this are more useful than those that encompass everything without design and selection, Montémont explains how she has expanded the scope of Frantext and the rigor she applies to her decisions regarding selection. Whilst Frantext is not an environment in which the public can contribute easily to memory-making, some memory institutions such as museums have made attempts to use social media to extend the scope of their work. There are significant challenges for institutions seeking use online media technologies to allow knowledge and content sharing. Merja Nummi and Leila Stenfors make an

Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart

xi

__________________________________________________________________ analysis of these endeavours in their paper. The projects analysed occupy a middle ground between the completely open and free environments like YouTube and Facebook to the curated environment that is Frantext, they give attempt to contextualise user generated content by giving structure through the use of topics and similar devices. Structure by its nature creates some restrictions and inhibits the freedom of memory-making that we see in open networks. This has some implications to the preformative effectiveness of the memories. Dieter De Bruyn discusses the commemorative value of digital memories, he argues that this depends on the performative effectiveness. The paper provides an analysis of both social networks and institutional sites in terms of the commemorative experience they offer to users. Memory and remembrance can have a profound and lasting effect on the individual, places of remembrance give us a space in which emotions are evoked. It can be argued that the digital space is as powerful as the physical in evoking emotional responses. However, it can also be argued that digital tools allow us to examine the physical in a way not possible before. In their paper, ‘Memorial of Deportation,’ Philippe Campays, Stephanie Liddicoat and Matt Randell describe how the digital is used to create a representation of the affect the physical site of memory induces. Differing to fixed sites of memory the memory event is temporal but powerful, creating waves and aftershocks. The memory event is central to Ellen Rutten’s paper, ‘Web Wars, or Russia’s and Ukraine’s Digital Languages of Memory,’ the paper refers to the ‘Memory at War’ project and its efforts to trace online movements in memory that deviate from the accepted representation of events. Memory events relate to soft memory unlike the hard physical memorial that is the Le Memorial de la Deportation in Paris; however, the impact can be dramatic and lasting reverberating through cultural memory. Technology is in a seemingly unstoppable process of reshaping memory and our experiences of it. Carlos Falci’s paper presents an intriguing glimpse into one such form that memory is now taking. The potential for programmable environments to gather and represent a fluid and collective form of memory presents us with cultural memory reconfigured in real-time, forever in a state of flux and under permanent construction. As a by-product of technological innovation we are seemingly marching forward towards a future wherein memory is harvested from our everyday lives. Coupled with the global reach of such innovations, Falci’s paper emphasises the need for rigorous analysis. Similarly, Tim Fawns’ contribution centres upon the consequences of mediated memory when we might be both overwhelmed by and disengaged from memory as a consequence of its ubiquity via new technologies. Fawns’ notion of blended memory introduces a potentially valuable contribution to our debates and discussion: as a concept through which we might balance the new relationships emerging as we look to digital media for ways to continually externalise that which we seek to memorialise. Seppo Kuivakari’s paper classifies and categories the

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Introduction

__________________________________________________________________ culture of simulation and cultural memory. This notion of simulation is central to Kuivakari’s thesis - as a way through which we might master our experiences and how they can be represented as spectacular cultural objects. In this survey we are again linked explicitly to the notion that technology is increasingly central to a process of understanding cultural memory. The practises of retrogaming reveal a larger set of associative cultural activities and habits, where new technologies act as a lens through which communities of gamers engage in a range of discourses centred on games often decades old. Jaakko Suominen’s exploration of three potential forms of discourse allows us to map methods for an engaged and reflective analysis of such practises. Janne Makela and Jaakko Suominen’s discussion of attempts to archive pages from the web’s earliest incarnation(s) related to Finnish music highlights critical points in any contemporary historiographical activity. New technology does not often stay new and, as such, is particularly vulnerable to being overwritten or unpreserved. In our rush to embrace the latest iterations of media storage and dissemination we might find ourselves left with little but memories of ‘pages that were once there.’ Their intriguing notion of lost new media raises the possibility, and perhaps need, of and for the software archaeologist - both in understanding formats and languages from times past and somehow making clear particular distinctions of novelty and ‘being first.’ Acts of contemporary preservation seem all the more critical when output of the recent past appears most likely to fade first. Paul Wilson and Patrick McEntaggart’s paper looks towards a role technology might play in preserving a community and culture now almost entirely located in and of memory. The social spaces of Working-Men’s Clubs in the UK are all but abandoned as their aging membership dies out. Technologically-mediated memory offers some opportunity to initially preserve these places and the (mostly) male voices of the members. More significantly, perhaps, Wilson and McEntaggart suggest a role for memory as more than simply a document of times past. Instead, they offer such relocated memory as an activist practise - with the potential to reinvigorate a seemingly moribund institution.

Notes 1

A. Maj and D. Riha, ‘Introduction’, Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2009, p. 1.

Bibliography Maj, A. and Riha, D., ‘Introduction’, Digital Memories: Exploring Critical Issues. Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2009.

PART 1 Social Networking and its Impact on Memories

Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village. The Significance of Regional, National and Transnational Identities in Social Network Sites Bernadette Kneidinger Abstract More than ever before, the future vision of the ‘global village’ 1 seems to become true with the rapid emerging of social network sites: whereas, in real-life the geopolitical origin of a person plays quite an important role for identity-construction, 2 it has to be questioned what significance regional, national or even transnational roots pose for users of social network sites. Two effects come into question: 1) a decreasing importance of nationality because the users regard themselves as members of a global community; 2) the rediscovery of own regional/national roots. Two online surveys of Facebook users and non-users and a content analysis of specific, Austria-bound Facebook groupings show a consistent high importance of regional and national roots even for the users of the global social network site. Key Words: National identity, social network sites, global village, patriotism, nationalism, online survey, content analysis. ***** 1. Introduction and Research Aim ‘Back to the roots’ - this statement, which describes the search for the own roots, points out very impressively the high importance of the awareness of origin as well as the feeling of belonging to a place, a group or a community. Thus, a certain geo-political classification forms an integral part of nearly every individual identity conception 3 . Thereby, an individual can be localised at a regional, national or transnational level, but even at more than just one level, depending on a specific situation or the interaction partners. 4 Whereas in the past, identity concepts were closely related to regional contexts because of limited mobility and still quite expensive communication media, nowadays, in the era of the so-called ‘global village,’ 5 which permits real-time communication regardless of the concrete location of the interaction partners, 6 transnational identities also become possible. Particularly, some growing social network sites like Facebook, that are intentionally designed to create and maintain social contacts independent from geographical distances, can influence the levels of geo-political identity construction. Thereby, the question arises how these global networks can cause a substitution or rather a reinvention of regional and national roots. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to answer the question of how users of the social network site Facebook deal with their regional, respectively national identity in the World

4

Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village

__________________________________________________________________ Wide Web and what forms of regional/national identity construction can be found in social network sites. 2. Theoretical Background - National Identity Before the significance of regional or national identities in the global network society can be discussed, the core meaning of the abstract concept of ‘national identity’ - as one form of geo-political identity - has to be clarified. Haller describes national identity as a ‘conscious, intellectual-spiritual, judgmental and emotional-affective founded affirmation of the belonging to a political community.’ 7 Heyder and Schmidt highlight the emotional aspect of national identity by describing the emotions ‘that each individual connects with the nation as a whole respectively with the particular aspects like national history, culture and economy.’ 8 National identity contains facets of individual identity by forming a part of the individual’s personality, as well as aspects of a collective identity by creating a feeling of group belonging. Additionally, the ‘active character’ 9 of national identity has to be mentioned, meaning, that on the one hand that national identity is expressed by the activities of nations as communities, and on the other hand it indicates that national identity changes over time. 10 It is a well-proven fact, that national identity can lose or gain significance depending on political, economical and social conditions. 11 Furthermore, for the empirical analysis it is important to distinguish between two forms of national identity, namely patriotism and nationalism. Whereas the former is often described as a ‘positive form’ of national identity, the latter is discussed as a more problematical and as a much more ‘negative form’ of national identity. In the context of this paper the two identity forms should be used according to the definitions of Heyder and Schmidt and Bar-Tal and Staub: Patriotism is the felt attachment of a person and their group or their country … and is always connected with feelings like love, pride, loyalty, awe as well as compassion and care. 12 Nationalism always implicates the comparison with other nations what leads to depreciation both of the other nation and the minorities in the own society which are perceived as different and less valuable. 13 3. The Empirical Survey To answer the question about regional, national or transnational identity construction of social network site users vs. non-users, a two-step research process was conducted: in the first step, users of Facebook as well as non-users were asked with two online questionnaires about their geo-political identification, their patriotic, nationalistic and national pride attitudes, as well as their attitudes towards

Bernadette Kneidinger

5

__________________________________________________________________ Austrian membership in the European Union (EU) and the factor of multiculturalism/xenophobia within their own nationality. In the second step it was examined by means of content analysis in what forms regional or national identities appear in the social network site. To optimise the comparability of users and non-users of social network sites, the study was focused only on national identity of Austria, respectively on different levels of geo-political identity construction of Austrian people. In total, 638 Austrians were interviewed; more than three quarters (77%) of the interviewees have a profile on Facebook. For the content analysis, Facebook groups and fan-pages were identified through the search engine of the social network site that explicitly allocates an Austrian identity or a membership to a certain region in Austria. In total, 210 Facebook groups and 63 fanpages with each of them having more than 1000 members were identified. Overall, some 1,2 million people are members in Austrian Facebook groups and while another 1,5 million users are ‘fans’ of one of the identified fanpages. These numbers are quite impressive for a small nation like Austria with about 8,4 million inhabitants 14 and 2,3 million Facebook users 15 which indicates the need for displaying/expressing of regional and/or national identity within the global social network site. 16 4. The Result - Online Survey 4.1 Comparison of Facebook-Users vs. -Non-Users Before outlining different comparisons between the regional, national and transnational identities of users and non-users, some socio-demographic key facts about the two groups should be presented. It depicts the expected age effect between the users and non-users: the average age of Facebook-users is significantly lower than that of non-users. The average user of the survey is 27,1 years old, which represents quite accurately the average age of an Austrian Facebook user. 17 On the other hand, the non-users of the survey sample have an average age of 39,2 years. This maldistribution had to be considered in all comparative analyses between Facebook users and non-users. No significant differences could be found for sex, education and origin. Levels of Identification To analyse the different geo-political identification levels of Facebook users and non-user with regard to the age factor, the two groups are analysed separately. Thereby, it appears that only within the group of Facebook users age exerts influence on the strength of geo-political identification. Whereas the oldest usergroup over 35 years reports a very strong feeling of identifying with the Austrian nation (m=4,5 18 ), the second-youngest group (21-25 years) shows a significant weaker identification with the own nation (m=4,118). The exactly same proportion can be observed on the regional level for identification with a certain region or

6

Geopolitical Identity Construction in the Virtual Global Village

__________________________________________________________________ province (35-years olds m=4,318, 20-25 years old m=3,818). Interestingly, such age differences cannot be found in the group of non-users of Facebook. National Identity Further age differences and differences between Facebook users and non-users can be observed in different forms of national identity, the attitudes toward the Austrian EU-membership and multiculturalism/xenophobia in Austria. Within the group of Facebook users significant age differences exist for all mentioned aspects of national identity. In comparison, non-users just show age differences in patriotism, national pride and xenophobia. In the group of Facebook users, the oldest group (over 35-years) shows the highest disposition for patriotism as well as nationalism, expresses an above average national pride, has the highest affinity for xenophobic attitudes and evaluates the Austrian EU-membership very negative. In the group of non-users, the oldest group also shows the highest values for patriotism, national pride and xenophobia, but no age effects could be observed for nationalism and attitudes toward the European Union. Membership in Regional or National Oriented Facebook Groups and Fanpages One way to express one’s own regional, national or transnational identity/identification on Facebook is by joining one of various groups or fanpages that explicitly address an identification to a city, region, province or a whole nation. It appears that nearly one half of the survey participants are members of such Austrian networks on Facebook (46,6%). This distribution allows a good comparison between people on Facebook who express their identity/identification to or show patriotic affection for Austria or a certain province by joining such a network, and those users who do not express it in that way. Motives of Membership The two main motives that drive Facebook members to join such a regionally or nationally oriented group or fan-page are 1) to ‘express with the membership my belonging to Austria’ (m=2,95 19 ) or 2) ‘because I like the name of the group/fanpage’ (m=2,8419). As a third motive, sort of a (virtual) group pressure is mentioned, because these users only ‘joined a group because friends had invited them’ (m=2,1819). Informative or communicative oriented motives such as ‘to get information about Austria’ (M=1,9319), ‘to communicate with other Austrians’ (m=1,9119) or ‘to discuss political topics’ (mean=1,6619) seem to be less important. The Significance of Group Memberships and ‘Fandom’ in Regional and National Facebook Groupings The comparison of the national identity of group members and non-members indicates interesting differences too: members of Austrian Facebook groups or fanpages express highly significant stronger patriotic, nationalistic and national

Bernadette Kneidinger

7

__________________________________________________________________ pride attitudes (m(pat)=4,1 20 ; m(nat) =2,720; m(pride)=3,520) than non-members (m(pat)=3,620, m(nat) =2,220, m(pride) =3,120). Table 1: National identity of Facebook group-members vs. non-members membership in regional or national Facebook grouping N mean significance patriotism member 220 4,1307 ***

nationalism

national pride

xenophobia/ multiculturalism attitudes toward Austrian EUmembership

non-member

256

3,6202

member

221

2,7371

non-member

258

2,1765

member

220

3,4955

non-member

251

3,0816

member

223

3,1441

non-member

257

2,4391

member

223

2,9258

non-member

258

3,4230

***

***

***

***

***