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14

Thursday, November 10

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

ARS05

Generations: Time, Media andMemory

G. Bolin

1

1

Södertörn University, Media & Communication, Huddinge, Sweden

The theme of generations in their relation to media touches on a number of issues pertinent to sociological and anthropological subjects. Ultimately

a temporal category that has been used for the explanation of societal change, it also relates to memory, with all of its varying meanings: Firstly, it links to

the memory of single generations in relation to media, given that each generation is a bearer of memories and characteristic narrative forms that are also

(but not only) linked to the media resources used. In this sense, shared memory shapes the generational experience, through the fact that each generational

member is situated at the same place in historical time. The generation of baby boomers, for whom television served as the dominant medium (appearing

during the formative years of this generation), has cultivated a special sense of participation in major events around the world, which – according to some

authors – has helped to make it an active, involved generation. In contrast, the millennials are characterized by the ease with which they live in the era

of theWeb, with its specific forms of narrative and storage, seemingly generating new forms of co-existence in the world, and producing new senses of his‑

tory. Secondly, social memory is characterized by the encounters between different generational memories, as well as of institutionalized forms of memory

(top-down: documentary and historical reconstructions and new forms of digital storage; bottom-up: the repertoires, collections, nostalgic blogs...). These

encounters also produce time, where the memories of specific generations (or generation units) are relationally situated to other memories. This theme is

central, today maybe more than ever, in light of our extended life expectancy and a marked increase in the number of co-existing generations (4 co-existing

generations compared to 3 at the start of the last century).Thus, memory becomes essential in the establishment of a shared culture and inter-generational

dialogue. One could consider the hypothesis that the different forms of social memory are no longer exclusively the product of institutional sources (gen‑

erated by educational institutions or traditional cultural legacies), but rather, more often being the result of the free flow and facilitated dialectic between

different memories, storage tools and memorization methods. The panel will address changes in these different forms of memory, focusing on the role

played by the media used (cinema, television, radio, blogs, social networks, archives on-line and off-line) and the generational characteristics in building

global and local memories.

PN 092

Media Memories and Intergenerational Relations

G. Bolin

1

1

Södertörn University, Media & Communication, Huddinge, Sweden

Usually, one distinguishes between two kinds of generational definitions: the kinship model, building on the generational exchanges within families,

for example between children, parents and grandparents. Generational belonging then relates to one’s place in the succession order of the family, and

one’s experience as family member. The other main model is the sociological definition of generations as theorized by Karl Mannheim and his followers,

where generational belonging is defined by one’s situation in relation to the historical time, that is, that time that is defined by the succession of events

that make up history. Generations in this sense are collective entities, where each generation is defined by its self-conscious situation in relation to ones

generational peers, who have experienced the same events. There are, however, reasons to argue that a perspective on generation as kinship is also ben‑

eficial for the deeper understanding of generation as sociological entity, since life-course experiences also have a collective dimension and contribute to

the shared memories of, for example, being a parent in a specific historical point in time can shape the collective imagination. Memories are thus culturally

and historically specific, and the specific circumstances under which they have their origin (what they point back to), also becomes generationally defin‑

ing. In the generationing process, i.e. where the process through which the generational identity come into being as a result of continuous revisits to and

recounts of memories, memories can be of different kinds, also prosthetic, in order to be fitted into the overall generational narrative. This paper argues,

on the empirical basis of a series of focus group interviews in Sweden and Estonia, that a dual perspective on generations, focusing on media memories

and the experiences of contrasting one’s parents or children’s media use with one’s own, can shed further light on the ‘problem of generations’. (300 words)

PN 093

Operationalizing Mannheim: Empirical Building Blocks of Generational Identity

V. Kalmus

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1

University of Tartu, Institute of Social Studies, Tartu, Estonia

The theoretical legacy of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of generations has been widely acknowledged in conceptualizing media generations, social mem‑

ory, generational consciousness and/or identity, and temporality in media studies and (media) sociology, particularly over the last couple of decades. At

the same time, methodological challenges, such as developing indicators for measuring generational identity and perception of the temporal qualities

of social changes (e.g. speed, acceleration, asynchronicity), or the boundary problem of delineating social (or media) generations in the continuum of births,

have been discussed. In particular, a tension between the qualitative nature of social generations and the quantitative features involved (such as size, age

and time), faced by researchers in their endeavours to operationalize the concept of generations, has been presented as epitomizing fundamental concerns

of the sociological imagination. This paper will present a methodological contribution to researching social (and media) generations quantitatively in

representative population surveys. The paper represents collective work carried out within the project “Acceleration of Social and Personal Time in the In‑

formation Society: Practices and Effects of Mediated Communication” at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. The research team has

developed a novel set of indicators for studying generational identity, social memory, time use and time perception (besides more conventional indicators