New media ecologies and memory in Chile and Argentina: confronting the violent past online.

With the proliferation of the internet many museums and archives have developed digital media
platforms for engaging audiences and sharing knowledge. Digital heritage consists of 'computerbased materials of enduring value' for future generations (www.unesco.org). Through digitisation,
the internet provides new audiences access to collections, interactive spaces and virtual museum
environments.
After dictatorships and conflict, many Latin American countries in the 1990s and 2000s created
physical memory sites to remember those who suffered, to educate, and to generate democratic
debate and respect for human rights. While there is an ever-expanding body of literature that
engages with these physical memory spaces (Jelin, 2007; Bell, 2014; Di Paolantonio, 2011; Da Silva
Catela, 2001) there has been little engagement with online platforms as alternative spaces to
transmit memories, engage audiences, and archive the past despite their often leading role in Latin
American countries.