Conflicts of Memory: Mediating and Commemorating the 2005 London Bombings

People routinely remember and use the past by interwining personal narratives with public events. People remember where they were when dramatic events occurred. These may be highly mediated memories, in film, on television, and in print, but they are still part of our very real personal and collective memories. Personal biography intersects with history in just this implicit way, locating the unfolding details of everyday life in terms of the events of the larger society - history in the making. This project traces the linkages between the media and our everyday remembering of past events through comparing the instant and archival capacities of television with people's own retellings of events.

Very recently, there has been a massive increase in the availability and use of mobile phones equipped with cameras and videos in the UK which has led to images and film captured by bystanders being used to help create and shape 'breaking news' stories. Our research will investigate the impact of these 'personal' media and 'individual' accounts on television news coverage of traumatic events (the July 2005 London bombings) and also on how these events are later commemorated on television, and how they ultimately come to be remembered by the public.

Rather than argue that television wipes out memory and feeling - however much it may reduce complex events to soundbites and talking heads - we suggest that television may also keep memories alive and dynamic.