Virtual tours through memorial sites : remembering human rights in a digital age

Abstract

Memories of the past are crucial for human rights work in the present. They provide justifications for the promotion of universal human rights values and serve as basis for the principle of ‘never again’. However, in order to ensure the preservation of memories over time and across generations, the ways of mediating them need to be constantly adapted and readjusted. For the digital age this means that new forms of mediation need to be developed which are capable of transmitting memories of the mainly analogue past to generations of a digital present, digital natives. The questions this thesis seeks to answer therefore revolve around how and to what extent virtual tours through memorial sites can and do serve as mediators of memory in a digital age, this way adding a transnational dimension to the notion of memory itself. Two such virtual tours will be analyzed according to Mayring’s technique of structuring content analysis through deductive category application.