The role of the internet in testimony
The case of the ‘Forgotten Australians’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11267968 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Adkins (Queensland University of Technology, corresponding author), Donna Hancox (0000-0002-2325-9950, Queensland University of Technology) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1151-1167 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Media Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0163443714545002 |
| OpenAlex | W2031325152 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 25 |
This article examines the case of the Forgotten Australians as an opportunity to examine the role of the internet in the presentation of testimony. ‘Forgotten Australians’ are a group who suffered abuse and neglect after being removed from their parents – either in Australia or in the UK – and placed in Church- and State-run institutions in Australia between 1930 and 1970. The campaign by this profoundly marginalized group coincided with the decade in which the opportunities of Web 2.0 were seen to be diffusing throughout different social groups, and were considered a tool for social inclusion. We outline a conceptual framework that positions the role of the internet as an environment in which the difficult relationships between painful past experiences and contemporary injunctions to remember them, are negotiated. We then apply this framework to the analysis of case examples of posts and interaction on websites with web 2.0 functionality: YouTube and the National Museum of Australia. The analysis points to commonalities and differences in the agency of the internet in these two contexts, arguing that in both cases the websites provided support for the development of a testimony-like narrative and the claiming, sharing and acknowledgement of loss
Acknowledgement · Agency (philosophy · Art · Inclusion (mineral · Media studies · Narrative · Neglect · Political science · Presentation (obstetrics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · The Internet · World Wide Web · Medicine · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
Materializations of Disaster
Structures of Social Action
Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma
Lectures on Conversation
Caught by images
Unclaimed Experience
Identity and Trauma
Wielding new media in Web 2.0
Sorry for the Genocide
Language, self, and social order
Digital spaces, material traces
The Sociological Imagination
A very popular blog
The city in the age of web 2.0 a newsynergisticrelationship between place and people
Giving a source or basis
Memory and Democracy
Evidentiality
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |