Emily Keightley | Loughborough University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Emily Keightley
Social Movements, Cultural Memory and Digital Media
Media History
2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of colonial rule in British India and of the division... more 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of colonial rule in British India and of the division of the country into the two independent states of India and Pakistan. To commemorate the event, in August 2017, the BBC broadcast a series of programmes focused specifically on Partition. Focusing on My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947, this article analyses the programme's structure and rhetorical strategies, with particular reference to its representation of the empire and of contemporary postcolonial Britain. We argue that the show, by merging personal and national histories, successfully promotes an inclusive perspective on Britishness, in line with the BBC's inclusivity remit, which also emphasises the multicultural character of Britain as a result of its colonial history. The emphasis on individualised account of suffering and resilience, however, leaves Partition circumscribed within the 'temporary madness' narrative, thus limiting the show's engagement with the politics of colonialism and decolonisation.
New Media & Society
This article addresses the lack of analysis of the specific ways in which the online environment ... more This article addresses the lack of analysis of the specific ways in which the online environment configures the relationship between the processual dynamics of nostalgia which allow for both creative and conservative modes of identification and the commercial exploitation and commodification of the nostalgia produced and articulated in online communities. We introduce an empirical case study of one of the companies operating on Facebook as a nostalgia maker: DoYouRemember.com and consider analytical frameworks for future work on the (online) ‘nostalgia business’ and its economic and political dimensions.
Media, Culture & Society
This editorial introduces a themed section aimed to spark further reflections on the limits and b... more This editorial introduces a themed section aimed to spark further reflections on the limits and boundaries of disconnection as a form of critique, activism and response to the pervasiveness of digital devices, platforms, and infrastructures. We outline two key limits in current thinking about disconnection: first, the universalist discourse of disconnection, which contrasts with the reality of a profound inequality of access to both connection and disconnection across the globe, and second, the fact that connectivity not only involves digital media users but also those who are materially not connected to the network. This introduction also reflects on the changing meanings of being connected and disconnected to digital networks and platforms at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic forces many people around the world to remain physically separated from others due to lockdown and quarantine measures.
Memory and the Management of Change
Memory Studies
The turn towards transnational memory has largely focused on particular sites and modes of rememb... more The turn towards transnational memory has largely focused on particular sites and modes of remembering, focusing on the creation of memories between and beyond nation-states in institutional politics, the media, migration and to a lesser degree social movements. Despite its significance for encountering other people's past, international tourism remains underexamined in the scholarship due to a focus on macro-developments, a polarisation along a binary of cosmopolitan vs conflictive memories and a discounting of memories shaped by commercialised logics. Drawing on a case study of Russian tourism in Tallinn, Estonia, this paper makes the case for a closer examination of tourist encounters as part of research on transnational memory. It examines how tourism works as an arena for the production and circulation of memories through direct transnational encounters, refracting and modifying macro-political memories within a commercialised service environment. We analyse the role of tour guides as mnemonic intermediaries and show how in their work with Russian tourists they navigate pasts that form the subject of ongoing memory conflicts at the level of international politics. Their representational strategies deemphasise contested pasts and avoid conflicts through neutrality and compromise. At the same time tourist encounters can also be used to create spaces for dialogue and the formation of positive relations. Overall the article demonstrates both the productivity and frictions of tourist settings for transnational remembering and makes the case for considering more ambiguous cases in transnational memory research.
Journalism, 2017
Many accounts of contemporary mediated communication of various kinds emphasise speed, immediacy ... more Many accounts of contemporary mediated communication of various kinds emphasise speed, immediacy and simultaneity as overriding temporal characteristics, and accounts of journalism are no exception. Acceleration in journalistic practice and the associated changes in news content and its communication have a variety of consequences. In the most extreme accounts, this produces ever-shallower news content while the immediacy of its delivery collapses deliberative time for its interpretation. This article attempts to challenge some of the assumptions on which these assertions are based by taking an alternative starting point in analysing news time and temporality: the news audience. We argue that many accounts which emphasise the paralysing effects of fast communication and the acceleration of news in particular fail to acknowledge the complexities of news consumption, instead pessimistically reading off the effects of speed from communications technologies themselves. We go on to consi...
Memory in a Mediated World, 2016
Time, Media and Modernity, 2012
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
Time, Media and Modernity, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Social Movements, Cultural Memory and Digital Media
Media History
2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of colonial rule in British India and of the division... more 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of colonial rule in British India and of the division of the country into the two independent states of India and Pakistan. To commemorate the event, in August 2017, the BBC broadcast a series of programmes focused specifically on Partition. Focusing on My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947, this article analyses the programme's structure and rhetorical strategies, with particular reference to its representation of the empire and of contemporary postcolonial Britain. We argue that the show, by merging personal and national histories, successfully promotes an inclusive perspective on Britishness, in line with the BBC's inclusivity remit, which also emphasises the multicultural character of Britain as a result of its colonial history. The emphasis on individualised account of suffering and resilience, however, leaves Partition circumscribed within the 'temporary madness' narrative, thus limiting the show's engagement with the politics of colonialism and decolonisation.
New Media & Society
This article addresses the lack of analysis of the specific ways in which the online environment ... more This article addresses the lack of analysis of the specific ways in which the online environment configures the relationship between the processual dynamics of nostalgia which allow for both creative and conservative modes of identification and the commercial exploitation and commodification of the nostalgia produced and articulated in online communities. We introduce an empirical case study of one of the companies operating on Facebook as a nostalgia maker: DoYouRemember.com and consider analytical frameworks for future work on the (online) ‘nostalgia business’ and its economic and political dimensions.
Media, Culture & Society
This editorial introduces a themed section aimed to spark further reflections on the limits and b... more This editorial introduces a themed section aimed to spark further reflections on the limits and boundaries of disconnection as a form of critique, activism and response to the pervasiveness of digital devices, platforms, and infrastructures. We outline two key limits in current thinking about disconnection: first, the universalist discourse of disconnection, which contrasts with the reality of a profound inequality of access to both connection and disconnection across the globe, and second, the fact that connectivity not only involves digital media users but also those who are materially not connected to the network. This introduction also reflects on the changing meanings of being connected and disconnected to digital networks and platforms at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic forces many people around the world to remain physically separated from others due to lockdown and quarantine measures.
Memory and the Management of Change
Memory Studies
The turn towards transnational memory has largely focused on particular sites and modes of rememb... more The turn towards transnational memory has largely focused on particular sites and modes of remembering, focusing on the creation of memories between and beyond nation-states in institutional politics, the media, migration and to a lesser degree social movements. Despite its significance for encountering other people's past, international tourism remains underexamined in the scholarship due to a focus on macro-developments, a polarisation along a binary of cosmopolitan vs conflictive memories and a discounting of memories shaped by commercialised logics. Drawing on a case study of Russian tourism in Tallinn, Estonia, this paper makes the case for a closer examination of tourist encounters as part of research on transnational memory. It examines how tourism works as an arena for the production and circulation of memories through direct transnational encounters, refracting and modifying macro-political memories within a commercialised service environment. We analyse the role of tour guides as mnemonic intermediaries and show how in their work with Russian tourists they navigate pasts that form the subject of ongoing memory conflicts at the level of international politics. Their representational strategies deemphasise contested pasts and avoid conflicts through neutrality and compromise. At the same time tourist encounters can also be used to create spaces for dialogue and the formation of positive relations. Overall the article demonstrates both the productivity and frictions of tourist settings for transnational remembering and makes the case for considering more ambiguous cases in transnational memory research.
Journalism, 2017
Many accounts of contemporary mediated communication of various kinds emphasise speed, immediacy ... more Many accounts of contemporary mediated communication of various kinds emphasise speed, immediacy and simultaneity as overriding temporal characteristics, and accounts of journalism are no exception. Acceleration in journalistic practice and the associated changes in news content and its communication have a variety of consequences. In the most extreme accounts, this produces ever-shallower news content while the immediacy of its delivery collapses deliberative time for its interpretation. This article attempts to challenge some of the assumptions on which these assertions are based by taking an alternative starting point in analysing news time and temporality: the news audience. We argue that many accounts which emphasise the paralysing effects of fast communication and the acceleration of news in particular fail to acknowledge the complexities of news consumption, instead pessimistically reading off the effects of speed from communications technologies themselves. We go on to consi...
Memory in a Mediated World, 2016
Time, Media and Modernity, 2012
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
Time, Media and Modernity, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Quantitative Audience Research: Embracing the Poor Relation 6 for example autobiographical accoun... more Quantitative Audience Research: Embracing the Poor Relation 6 for example autobiographical accounts were collected to assess the role of movies in shaping sexual attitudes and behaviours (Jowett et al, 1996: pp.242-280).