Mediated Memories - Jose van Dijck

The text examines the concept 'mediated memories' and the functionality of this concept.

'Mediated memories' was the name of the graduate course at the University of A'dam's department of media studies 2004. Jose v Dijck worked the premises of the course into a book together with Thomas Elsaesser.

The text gives us different kind of perspectives on PERSONAL memory (home media) and COLLECTIVE memory (mass media). 'Media shapes our memory'

'Media and memory are not separte entities'

'Media have become our foremost tools for memory' p74

Mediated experiences 'EXTERNAL (technology) and INTERNAL (mind) memories' p75

How term Media and memory came into term mediated memory; text gives a lot of summarized perspectives on this concept by different theorists (annette Kuhn/Steven Rose/Walter Ong/Plato/George Lipsitz a.o.)

'Media are thus paradoxically defined as invaluable yet indisious memory tools...' p72/73

'Media and memory mutually constitute our everyday experiences' p76

Van Dijck defines mediated memories as "the activities and objects we produce and appropriate by means of media technologies, for creating and recreating a sense of the past, present and future of our selves in relation to others" p77 and 'mediated memories involve individuals carving out their place in history' p77

'Perception changes over time' p77

The text ends with the analysis of a photograph and shows us the functionality of the concept.

'Mediated memories as a useful concept to theorize why and how people use media technologies to remember' p78