Journalism And Memory In Barbie Zelizer's Memory Work

On the surface, it seems that Journalism and memory are not related. They are even opposite in some ways; one is reporting news and the other one is about recording the past. After reading Barbie Zelizer’s Journalism’s Memory Work, it is clear that Journalism and memory are strongly connected and interdependent. By integrating memory devices such as collective memory, journalists could achieve their goal of presenting latest information to audiences better and easier. Memory played a role of repositories helping journalists to analyze current events and to explain them to audiences. News is information that not previously known to people, and sometimes it is hard to explain. By using collective memory, the memory that shared by the whole social group, to compare and contrast with

ISIS supporters’ presence on the internet is an enclosed community — only insiders know what is happening (Hughes) and this community only allows one view to stay in it (Shane, Apuzo, Schmitt). An echo chamber is like the community — it is enclosed and only has one voice repeating in it. Also, the author used collective memory to explain why ISIS, a terrorist group, can attract many young followers in United States. In front of those supporters, ISIS changed its image from a terrorist organization to the embodiment of justice against the United States. The author mentioned past memory about American military actions overseas and anti-Muslim populism of the kind recently promoted by Donald J. Trump. (Shane, Apuzo, Schmitt) American military actions overseas are not popular in many people’s minds — many criticize these as wasteful and abuse of international law. Donald J. Trump’s anti-Muslim speeches also