fausto colombo catholic university of milan - italy
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The past is a shared country. How social media collaborate to the definition of the “nostalgic” genre. Fausto Colombo Catholic University of Milan - Italy. Starting point: a sociology of nostalgia. F. Davis,, Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, 1979 - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The past is a shared country.How social media collaborate to the
definition of the “nostalgic” genre
Fausto Colombo
Catholic University of Milan - Italy
Starting point: a sociology of nostalgia
F. Davis,, Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, 1979
D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 1985 R. Robertson, “After Nostalgia? Wilful Nostalgia and the
Phases of Globalization”, 1990 C. Shaw, & M. Chase, (eds.), The Imagined Past: History
and Nostalgia, 1989 B.S. Turner, “A note on Nostalgia”, 1987; “Nostalgia,
Postmodernism and the Critique of Mass Culture”, 1988
(The past is a foreign country is the beginning of The Go-Between, novel written by L.P. Hartley)
Defining a nostalgic psychological attitude
Relation between an individual and her/his personal past (childhood or adolescence)
Subjective memory (not necessarily shared with others)
Positive attitude towards this past (sometimes) Fetish behaviour (example:
collectionism)
Defining a nostalgic social attitude
Relation between a generation and its collective past (the historical moment when people of a generation were young)
Collective memory (necessarily shared with others)
Positive attitude towards this past as a way of (collective) identity building
Social (in-group) discourse (“The way we were”)
Defining a nostalgic genre(i.e. in american cinema ‘70)
Media discourses and texts wherein nostalgia is the presumed attitude of the target
Target generation represented in the present, living in nostalgic attitude or in the past the generational target is nostalgic
for The past is represented mainly through a “fetish”
representation of the objects, social rituals an values of everyday life
Nostalgic genre in italian traditional media (for boomers’ generation)
Some examples where the defined/described/imaginated past correspond to the 60s (the youth of the boomers generations)
A movie: Sapore di mare (1983) A Tv series: Raccontami (2006/07)
Critical analysis
The past is described like a place without conflicts, where the only things to take care of are personal problems, personal /very general) ethics, and so on
The past is evoked by the presence of material/cultural products (design objects, songs, public characters…)
Nostalgic genre in italian web 2.0
User generated contents about 60’, 70’
http://www.pagine70.com/
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/mic.perrone/Anni70.htm
http://www.doktorlove.com/annisettanta.html
Critical analysis
The past is evoked representing cultural products (design objects, songs, public characters…) as a links to the collective memory
Basically, the historical perspective is absent: when there is an historical approach, it is modulated following an “evenementielle” storytelling
70s are involved in the process of “nostalgization” through a discourse translating them in 60s-like decade
Synthesis
In nostalgic genre there are no real differences between traditional media narrative texts and web 2.0 UCG: Representation of the past throughout representation
of material or cultural products (i.e. industrial mass production)
Substitution of historical perspective with Pseudohistorical background (in traditional media) Pseudohistorical tales (in UCG) Absence of narrative perspective and substitution with
“amateur collector” emotion
The time-line representation in italian nostalgic discourse
60s 80s Today
Time-structure of nostalgic ideology
Removedperiods 70s 90s
Social conflicts
Political conflicts
Understanding nostalgic discourse
Media genre show itself as a part of wider social discourse or social imaginary
The “nostalgia effect” could be represented as a ideology of time (strategy of cultural egemony), where traditional media play a crucial role in create Material conditions (cultural objectes, representation and
memory of material objects) Ideological storytelling (in contrast to historical discourse
as a form of knowledge)
The UCG nostalgic genre do not show real differences from the traditional media one.
References
Colombo, F. & Fortunati (eds), L., Broadband Society and Generational Changes, Peter Lang 2011
Davis, F., Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, The Free Press, N.Y. 1979
Jameson, F., Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press. 1991.
Lowenthal, D. The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985 Morreale, E., L’invenzione della nostalgia. Il vintage nel cinema italiano e
dintorni, Donzelli, Roma 2009 Robertson, R., After Nostalgia? Wilful Nostalgia and the Phases of
Globalization, in B.S. Turner, Theories on Modernity and Postmodernity, Sage 1990, 45-61
Shaw, C. & Chase, M. (eds.), The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, Manchester University Press 1989
Turner, B.S. , A note on Nostalgia, “Theory, Culture and Society”, 4, 1987, 147-156; Nostalgia, Postmodernism and the Critique of Mass Culture, , “Theory, Culture and Society”, 5, 1988, 509-526
