The political instrumentality of cultural memory : the case study of Ireland

Corcoran, Farrel (author)

This paper examines how cultural memory relates to political communication, especially in polities where the stability of political structures cannot be assumed. It argues that the dominant thrust of political communication research is to emphasise the synchronic dimension in political culture at the expense of the diachronic. This makes it more difficult to discern the role played by political actors who can achieve control over the shaping and parsing of the reservoir of stored meaning that is embedded in cultural memory. The diachronic dimension in political communication can be examined most clearly at those "sites of memory" where the slow formation of ideology, consensus and collective identity takes place. These reflections on the relationship between time, memory and the exercise of political power are worked out in a case study of contemporary Ireland, where moves in the late 1990s to end the conflict in Northern Ireland have yielded political structures that are still quite unstable, where the past surges into the present in scenarios quite unlike what is often described as the flattening oftime and memory assumed to be at the heart of late modernity.

• Language: English
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Year: 2002
• Number of pages: Str. 49-63
• Numbering: Vol. 9, [no. ]3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-75328
• UDC: 659.3/.4
• ISSN on article: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 21464157
• Publication date in RUL: 21.12.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Javnost = The public
• Shortened title: Javnost
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, European Institute for Communication and Culture
• ISSN: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 40119808

Secondary language

• Language: Unknown
• Title: Politična instrumentalnost kulturnega spomina: primer Irske

Abstract

Članek proučuje povezanost kulturnega spomina s političnim komuniciranjem, zlasti v razmerah, ko politične strukture niso stabilne. Ugotavlja, da raziskovanje političnega komuniciranja postavlja v ospredje sinhrono razsežnost politične kulture na račun diahrone. Zaradi tega je težje izluščiti vlogo političnih akterjev, ki lahko vzpostavijo nadzor nad oblikovanjem in razčlenjevanjem zaloge pomenov, shranjenih v kulturnem spominu. Diahrono razsežnost političnega komuniciranja je mogoče najjasneje proučevati na tistih "prostorih spomina", kjer počasi poteka oblikovanje ideologije, konsenza in kolektivne identitete. Razmišljanja o odnosu med časom, spominom in politično močjo so izpeljana v študijo primera sodobne Irske, kjer so pobude za končanje konflikta v Severni Irski ob koncu devetdesetih letih vzpostavile politične strukture, ki so še vedno dokaj nestabilne, kjer preteklost buri sedanjost s scenariji, ki so vse prej kot laskanje spominu in času, ki naj bi bilo v jedru pozne moderne.