Visual Media and Collective Memory
How visual media shape collective memory
Visual media: Shaping collective memory
According to Barbie Zelizer's review of the book Realms of memory, the simple question: "What does it mean to be French" is the focus of all three volumes of the massive cultural history of the nation (Zelizer 1999: 201). The artifacts chronicled by the author of the book are simple, yet complex enough to sustain the reader's attention. The work Zelizer is reviewing is divided into three sections: conflicts and divisions, traditions, and symbols. Certain visual themes, including food and competitive bicycling, run throughout all three works, given the significance they have in French culture. Within America, other visual themes in history have similar symbolic significance and embody all three aspects of visual history -- conflicts, traditions, and symbols. This can be seen in the treatment of the Vietnam War in the media.
The Vietnam War was...
sent troops abroad. It came to symbolize, in the 1960s, a classic divide between old and young, square and 'hip.' By and large, the opponents of the war were young. They identified with a counterculture that celebrated sex, drugs, rock n' roll, rebellion and defiance of authority. In contrast, the supporters of the war identified themselves as upholding traditional American cultural values. In the visual symbolism of the debate, of American flags vs. peace signs, the actual issues of the war often took a backseat.
Even Americans who did not live through that epoch in American history often feel as if they remember the Vietnam War through its symbolism, like the image of a young Vietnamese girl being burned by napalm, or war protestors putting flowers in the guns of soldiers as they stormed the Pentagon. The idea that Vietnam was a cultural battle is very American, given that for the Vietnamese people it was a war of independence or at very…
