Description
Since its rise in 2007, the digital age of social media platforms has radically challenged the established norms of archiving war, violence, and national security. The substantial inflow of data and information shared by social media users form the basis of today’s digital archives, which in turn shape collective memory. The digital age has challenged established bureaucratic governmental archives and thus the role of social media platforms in the ecology of war, collective memory, and national security warrants deeper academic inquiry to develop a novel understanding of digital memory.
This research aims to explore how Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter are redesigning the politics of narratives and collective memory in the context of warfare and national security. Through the conceptual lenses of politics of narratives, digital and the social psychology of attention and control, the study explores how social media users, both intentionally and unintentionally, influence the construction of collective memory. The research hypothesises that the digitalisation of memory challenges not only the authenticity and originality of archival data but also the bureaucratic mechanisms reminiscent of Weberian governance that attempt to distinguish between right and wrong in the construction of national narratives. Thus, digital archives have emerged as a new battleground in contemporary warfare, one that merits close academic attention in the fields of memory, war, and security studies.
This research examines the CIA's drone warfare (2004-2018) in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, focusing on the challenges faced by state bureaucracies in constructing a coherent collective memory of drone warfare—both in Pakistan and the United States. By applying discourse analysis and content analysis to social media posts related to CIA-led drone strikes, the research develops a theoretical framework for understanding digital memory in the context of drone warfare and the broader implications of digitalised memory in contemporary conflict.
