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Special issue of medien & zeit [media & time]

Nostalgia is booming. People recollect and embrace media formats and communication technologies of their childhood. We witness a revival of vinyl records and how media design adopts new products to the vintage appeal of old media technologies. TV dramas, music styles, advertisements and product design alike are flirting with the charms and lifestyles of the past. We decorate our apartments with vintage furniture and rediscover retro-drinks and retro-fashion. People share memories about past media practices, commodity brands and other everyday experiences from romanticized pasts to communicate and identify who they are today, and where and how they belong. The recent hype about nostalgia however is more than just mere fascination for the past in a variety of cultural spheres and contexts. It hints to more profound social and cultural developments: Memory – nostalgic or otherwise – is not neutral but carries biases regarding political orientations, social norms, and cultural values. It bears an inherently social dimension. This special issue thus invites original articles (4000 – 6000 words), which address nostalgia, through, by and towards media and in various communicative contexts and ask for the potential role of nostalgia as a seismograph of cultural and political sentiment. Media can serve as vessels, addressees and also lenses through which people look at fond memories; they can amplify as well as deafen nostalgia and memory. Weiterlesen →