History, Memory, Geography Spring 2010

Published 26 April 2010 Uncategorized 14 Comments

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1 Rebecca B. 27 April 2010 at 3:03 pm

Edward W. Said, “Invention, Memory, and Place”
“Similarly, as Howard Zinn has suggested in his work, there has been skepticism expressed as to why the study of American history should glorify only the big deeds of big people and neglect to mention what happened to the small ones, the people who built railroads, worked the farms, sweat as laborers in the enormous industrial companies that lie at the heart of this country’s immense wealth and power” (176).
When history is being studied and for myself growing up in school I only learned about the big people that did big deeds. Until I came to college I had the chance to learn more about the little people that were the “heart of this country’s immense power and wealth.” Still, there has been a great amount of my university education that continued to stay focused on the big people. This point here reiterates how the study of history no matter who or where you are, history is still studied mainly on the big deeds of big people.
To understand why and how things have worked in the world there is so much more to it then the big people and what they did. If it was not for the small people, most of the big deeds that happened would have never happened. There is not just one person that can make such huge deed happen on their own. For example, Hitler could not have done what he did in WWII if it was not for the small people. It was the small people that went out and did the work for Hitler, he just was the one that decided to tell the people what he wanted and they did it (well of course it was much more complicated then that, but for my point we do not need to go into all of that). In my Persuasion and Propaganda class, for the first time I learned things about Hitler and his propagandistic ways, and if it was not for some of the small people that helped him with propagandistic ideas for getting people to help him, I wonder if Hitler would have had such a strong impact as he did with persuading people to be on his side and believe in him.
That is just one example, but I think that we have to remember and think more about the small people in history and even the events in history that are happening today. Big deeds do not happen just because of one big person, but because of the help with the many small people they are able to do a big deed that we learn about in books and in history.
So, why is it that we only focus on the big people and the big events? Why do we feel that the only thing important is the big deeds of big people?

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2 Kendra 28 April 2010 at 11:59 am

Kendra Osburn
Media and Conflict
Week of: April 28

Position Statement
Invention, Memory, and Place by Edward Said

“In the Islamic world, how one reads the orthodox tradition (sunnah) is being debated, as are the questions of how one interprets stories about the Prophet, which are, basically, memories reconstructed by disciples and friends, and how one can derive an image of contemporary Islamic codes of behavior and law that is consonant and in accordance with those precious, early, in fact aboriginal memories. Similar questions arise in interpretations of the Christian Gospels, as well as the Judaic prophetic books; these questions have a direct impact on matters of community and politics in the present. Some of this lies behind the much-touted controversy over family values that have been vaunted by political candidates, moral philosophers and public scolds.” (p.178)

I was six years old. My family and another family were en rout to northern California when the dads of the trip decided that we should stop and take a ride on a propeller plane. A couple of years later when reliving the experience with my parents, I said I remembered loving how the plane was red and had two propellers. My parents both laughed and told me that the plane was black and had only one propeller. They brought out a picture to prove their point.
As a psychology minor, I am fairly familiar with “memory.” We have studied memory in most of my classes and it never fails to intrigue me. In addition to my experience with the red propeller plane, I have learned in psychology that our memories are extremely malleable. Memories can be changed, lost, or as we saw in the article, used against us. We learned in psychology that accident witnesses are unreliable because so often the memory of the event has changed in their mind.
This becomes frightening when our memory becomes an active player in how we view our world. As seen in the quote above, our memory affects not only our past but also, our future. We interpret everything based on our memory – our understanding of our past, our history and our place in society.
In the case of religion, people are forced rely on other people’s accounts of what happened. Meaning ultimately, people are forced to rely on other people’s memories.
This is extremely frightening because religion, as it plays such an important part in peoples lives, is a good target for “memory manipulation.”
Speaking from the standpoint of a protestant Christian, our “authority” is the Bible. However, the Bible was written by humans who have inherently flawed memories. Looking at the Catholic Church, their “authority” is the Pope. However, the Pope is a human too (as we are seeing now), advised by other humans, all of whom have malleable memories (I cite these two examples purely because they are the two that I am most familiar with). This is important to note because so many of our current world conflicts (as Said highlighted) are a direct result of “religious” memories. As seen above, these memories are often unreliable or easily shaped.
So whom can we trust? If we are religious, we trust God, but our understanding of God is based on other people’s memories. If we are atheist, we trust ourselves, but our own memory is often flawed.
Ultimately, no one is a trustworthy source. We cannot actively rely on ourselves. Our own memory betrays us. So whom can we trust?

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3 Stephanie K. 28 April 2010 at 1:15 pm

Selling Canada to Canadians: Collective Memory, National Identity, and Popular Culture

“As much as the viewer might feel, while viewing the Heritage Minutes and Canada: A People’s History, that one is experiencing the past in a relatively unmediated manner, unavoidably the presentation of events and personalities fits into larger narrative that traces the past in terms of how it contributed its assumed end-point, the contemporary nation-state.”

West points out that the producers of both Heritage Minutes and A People’s History try to maintain a unified and diverse collective memory for Canadian history. However, the viewers must remember that while both productions tried to remain honest, inclusive and factual in perpetuating Canada’s “collective memory,” it is still a mediated memory. This proposes a problem for the “collective memory” because in reality it is ideological and not entirely a memory. For example, certain events that the producers saw as irrelevant to Canada’s history might not have been included in the productions. Also, scandals (if any) would have also been left out in order to present a homogenous idealized utopia. While reading about the two productions I couldn’t help but think about the framing of each. The article pointed out that the producers wanted to bolster Canadian collective memory to strengthen national identity; therefore Canada’s “collective memory” was portrayed through a certain lens. While I watched the “Military Minutes” clip I couldn’t help but think that the clips were dramatized in a way that, to me, did not represent reality. The clips looked more like dramatic scenes from a movie and it didn’t really say “history.” I don’t want to discredit the drama or intensity of war, because we have all seen in Comm 338 that these things are very real. The clips just seemed too propagandistic to be taken into a collective memory. I think that propaganda is more appropriate for building nationalism but not necessarily a collective memory. West states that appearing too propagandistic is one of the difficulties the producers faced in a Canadian context.

Overall, I think that A People’s History and the Heritage Minutes sound like good ideas to bolster national identity to help Canada “survive” the internal and external threats of separation, however, viewers should be aware that these images are still a framed and mediated “collective memory.” Nonetheless, these are just the opinions of an American college student who knows little to nothing about Canada’s collective identity crisis.

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4 Helen F 28 April 2010 at 1:56 pm

“[The conflict over Palestine] is also an indication of how geography can be manipulated, invented, characterized quite apart from a site’s merely physical reality” (Said, 2000).

I agree with Edward W. Said that geography, similar to memory, can be “manipulated, invented and characterized” (Said, 2000) differently from its physical presence. Said, defines “geography” as “a socially constructed and maintained sense of place” (Said, 2000). Prior to reading this article, I had thought of land as “reality” (Said, 2000) that could not be altered or changed because land physically visible and cannot disappear unless there is some large natural disaster. Said points out that land can “disappear” to certain groups of people when history is inaccurately portrayed or recorded. Said focuses on the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. One event in history has two completely different meanings to the people and representations of the land. Said discusses the events of 1948 as a year that will be remembered as “nakba,” or catastrophe. Two-thirds of the Palestinian population was “driven out, property taken, hundreds of villages destroyed, and an entire society obliterated” (Said, 2000). Conversely, the Israelis view this year as marking Israeli independence, democracy, and recovery from the Holocaust. This is a very clear example of how geography is constructed and manipulated based on the perspective from which the land is being portrayed to the people. The issue of the land belonging to a certain group of people changes, depending on which perspective the events in history are told from; the perspective thus manipulates, invents and characterizes the significance of the land.
How does the manipulation of geography play into arguments about race and ethnicity?

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5 Sara O 28 April 2010 at 3:07 pm

“Inscribed in the logic of a system memories confront each other, intermingle, fuse or erase each other arriving to the destiny of the societies whose identity they help to define” (218).

What I found most intriguing about Barbie Zelizer’s article was how memories have the ability to change and adapt with time, and how remembering really is a process where produced recollections can be morphed into something different. However, my problem with this concept is how easily the truth can be manipulated and changed in order to fulfill the wishes of those who are more powerful.
Zelizer highlighted the idea of the erasure of certain memories, and I believe it is important to understand what makes us erase certain topics or events. I don’t believe important memories are purely forgotten, I believe they are “willed absent.” In the article, the author states how Americans have been cast as slightly more amnesiac than other populations. I definitely think this is true. America often does not like to admit faults or failures. We constantly praise ourselves for saving others and doing the right thing, but what about the times when we have made mistakes? For instance, it’s not very often in history classes that we learn of concentration camps held here in the United Sates. That is a dark mark in our history and we prefer to pretend it never happened. I agree with the article when it states that our sense of forgetting really is giving in to domination of powerful elites, we really do remember and forget what they implicitly tell us to.
Also, when the quote refers to the intermingling of memories, I believe that has to do with all memories being partial. I think a good example of that would be if someone says to picture the USD campus. Everyone would probably picture something different, and not one image alone would create the entire campus. We would all just have partial images or memories in our mind, and they would need to combine in order to create a fuller and more complete memory or picture. The problem, which the article states and I again agree with, is how the partiality of the memory often benefits those who have more power and influence to shape it. I think it’s true when powerful groups attempt to make “official” history, they are just trying to weed out the unwanted memories. They try to get us to forget ideas or events that could reflect badly on them or on our culture as a whole.
This problem of selected collective memories is intensified through our media. The media is often controlled by powerful elites or government officials who have the influence to shape what becomes public, or what images are reinforced. Since the media is a way to document our world it has the ability to help us remember. In my opinion, the media has the ability to pick and choose what to document, which then affects what we see, and therefore how we remember events. Our memories are directly affected by how they intermingle, what we choose to erase, and how powerful people decide to shape what we consider as important.
It seems as though the public has lost some power in controlling what we know and what we remember. In my opinion, it is important to figure out how to regain control of our collective memories. Is it even possible? Do we have to change the way our media work and report events? Or is it even possible to obtain a fully whole representation of events opposed to just partial, and selected memories?

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6 Robyn F 28 April 2010 at 3:08 pm

Position Statement – “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies” Barbie Zelizer

“Memory becomes not only the construction of social, historical, and cultural circumstances but a reflection of why one construction has more staying power than its rivals.”

Barbie Zelizer proves that our collective memory is truly a construction of the inputs we receive from popular culture. We take what we are told as a collective society and ingrain the information into our memory, therefore passing down that same information from generation to generation. The collective memory is influenced by social, historical, and cultural circumstances because each is a commonality within the people of one nation. The question remains, where does the influence of the social, historical, and cultural circumstances come from?

The United States of America was based on the ideal of the “American Dream” and this concept has continued to influence the basis of our social, historical, and cultural beliefs. Socially, we are seen as a nation of opportunity full of people that are entitled to the ability to accomplish their dreams. Historically, we are known as the “good guy,” The U.S. has placed itself on a pedestal in order to spread democracy and peace. Culturally, we are diverse and full of many eclectic groups. Therefore the U.S. culture varies, but remains to be based on ideals of power, profit, and entitlement. These are the ideas that have withstood over time and have become the overpowering thoughts that remain in our collective memory.

In conclusion, Zelizer states, “In between one’s head and the world, therefore is a repertoire of different agents of mediation – media that help us remember.” How we receive the ideas that transform our nation’s collective memory is through media. Media is the constructed power that controls our memories. For that reason, we need to recognize who controls the media outlets, in addition to the absence of information within these outlets. The information that is continually reported on holidays, such as Independence Day, Martian Luther King Jr Day, or September 11th will be the thoughts that remain in our collective memory. The power of the media as an information outlet will forever effect the collective minds of America.

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7 Chris Engell 28 April 2010 at 4:58 pm

Chris Engell
Media Conflict
Position Statement

Selling Canada to Canadians:Collective Memory,
National Identity and Popular Culture

“The Heritage Minutes and Canada: A peoples History strive to produce something stirring and compelling- something that Canadians can get excited about, and that will elicit the kind of national pride in the past that the makers of these programs and others seem to believe will be instrumental in the survival and strength of Canada.”

West talks about how Canada’s collective memory is in trouble. To address this failed perception of collective memory, Canada has introduced The Heritage Minutes and Canada: A Peoples History to maintain a cohesive collective memory for Canada’s history. Even though these shows seem to be a part of popular television, they are supposed to be good for people. But people need to be aware of what information they are taking in. These shows are supposed to address a “collective memory” of the history, but it becomes mediated because the shows have the ability to leave out certain events. The producers are the ones who can pick and choose what facts get put into these shows. An example of this would be any kind of scandal or occurrence that would bring a negative outlook to Canada. According to the article, the producers believe the shows will bolster Canadian collective memory, which in turn will contribute to strengthening the nation, and even save it from threats from both and within. These shows implicitly present themselves as working against these threats in order to ensure Canada’s survival and national identity. An example of collective memory that was recently in the news was when Canada hosted the Olympics. All the commercials and documentaries showed how nice Canada was so people would come there. The media did everything they could to boost Canada’s national identity because they are struggling to gain the economic status of the United States.
I really do thing that The Heritage Minutes and Canada: A Peoples History are a very good idea to help boost Canada’s national identity. People need to know and understand the history of where they are from. The issue with these shows is that the producers can pick and choose what information is shown on the shows. So there may be issues or scandals that really were important to their country that may not have been shown.

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8 Stephanie A 28 April 2010 at 5:41 pm

Position Statement: “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies” by Barbie Zelizer

“The study of collective memory, then, is much more than the unidimentional study of the past. It represents a graphing of the past as it is used for present aims, a vision in bold relief of the past as it is woven into the present and future” (217).

Among other distinct assertions, Barbie Zelizer makes a unique argument regarding the framework that shapes our collective memory. Rather than accepting a flat definition of the concept, her interpretation of the effects popular culture and mainstream media has on our perceptions of the past, present and future reality raises several questions about the origins of our “memories.”

Indeed there are several objective contributing elements to our remembrance of specific occurrences, however exactly how much of the social, cultural and political aspects of society influence human recollection? Unarguably media sources such as television programs, magazine articles, even fashion trends impact the assigned of meanings of characteristics or actions, but how does that mold collective memory?

One of the most significant ideas in this discussion is the study of group memory acting as the creator of history, particularly American history. Our nation is built upon a longtime perception of liberty and the pursuit of happiness – the land of boundless opportunity. While parts of this may hold true for some, it is an idealized sense of reality established centuries ago by those wishing to have only a lasting memory of inaccurate perfection. This theory has only been perpetuated through academic lessons in our education program which fail to acknowledge several major downfalls in U.S. history but willingly point the finger at others who make similar errors. I learned the most about the evolution of our country as a U.S. citizen studying abroad in Australia. It was interesting to hear input from foreigners about the extent to which they view Americans as a population attempting to hold themselves to such an untainted standard. It is our social collective memory to maintain an ideology of power, strength and fair democracy, and this groupthink mindset is applauded and encouraged by mainstream media.

In the end, I would have to concur with Zelizer in identifying the media’s overwhelming dominance in our collective memory. It is important to recognize that while collective memory is partial, it is powerful. This assumption defends the notion that it can manipulate and challenge just about any event in history to make it fit into the framework it chooses. This raises a final curiosity: how much of what we remember is truly our memory? Did humans in American culture ever have individualized memory?

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9 Spencer McCluskey 28 April 2010 at 5:41 pm

Position Statement: “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies” By, Barbie Zelizer.
“This essay argues that the move from individualized to collective action in the study of memory has given the act of remembering an all-new cast of characters, activities, and issues.” (214).
Our world is shaped by events and the way people handle those events. Every person in the world is molded to fit the experiences they have had since they were born. Whether you are affected by a movie, a song, natural disaster, war, or a family affair we all have experiences that mold our perception of how the world operates. No one’s perception will ever be the same, which is the best part about it. This can be true and false, because if you are talking about collective memory than you have a lot of people who share the same thoughts and beliefs. For example, the way 9/11 was handled by the media created a collective point of view on terrorism. After 9/11 everyone shared the same thoughts about terrorism. Now our collective memory is similar to a lot of others because of the media’s reflection towards those events. It is how our contemporary memory is molded that reflects our perceptions for the future. I feel my generation is easily persuaded by outside factors like news, politicians, media, and celebrities.
Our memory almost becomes useless without some kind of social framework to guide our memory. Our social framework is what molds our process of memory to help us distinguish our thoughts to help us react to events that are to come. This also plays into the relationship between collective and contemporary memory. Collective memory thrives on remaking the excess of past decades into material with contemporary significance; it then becomes filled with reused and reusable material. This is way we should always reflect strongly on events that come our way, because it will help our perceptions of the future.

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10 Kevin N. 28 April 2010 at 6:34 pm

Zelizer, “Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies” – Position Statement
–
“Unlike personal memory. which refers
to an individual’s ability to conserve
information, the collective memory comprises
recollections of the past that are
determined and shaped by the group.
By definition. collective memory thereby
presumes activities of sharing.”
–
I would not disagree with Zelizer’s statement, because we do live a society now that thrives on the interconnectedness of others around us and therefore our own memories become public and is brought into the collective. However, I do feel that she in her article overemphasizes the collective as the predominate, as we in the U.S. are still very much tied into the individual aspects of our own lives and we like keeping our memories and other essential aspects out of the public eye as much as possible.

Many argue that with the diversity of social networking sites and blogs all of our memories are not our own but in the collective, but that is not true.

We still hold on to this notion of the individual as the difference-maker, with the ‘Rock the Vote’ campaigns, our movies still are based around one central figure (for the most part), our sports, honors only one person in each respective league as the best as the MVP (Most Valuable Player, not Players).

And while we many remember things as a collective, for example, the 1927 New York Yankees line-up, as team they are known as Murderers’ Row but ask anyone and they can only name Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig not the entire nine player line-up. It is an example of how much we focus in on the individual rather then the group.

Zelizer notes, that our memory is switching to the collective because we remember the big picture better then the little details, I believe that is only true when one talks about a dramatic event, i.e. World War II, what do we remember from it? Germany’s invasion of Poland, occupation of france, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, D-Day, VJ-Day and VE-Day. And that the Allies won in the end. However at that time and since World war II and its causes have centered around an individual – Hitler.

In closing, we my have opened up a lot more doors and shared more information but our memories and recalls are still centered around the individual.

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11 Katelyn R. 29 April 2010 at 12:44 am

Edward W. Said “Invention, Memory, and Place”
“National identity always involves narratives-of the nation’s past, its founding fathers and documents, seminal events, and so on. But these narratives are never undisputed or merely a matter of the neutral recital of facts. In the United States, for example, 1492 was celebrated very differently by people who saw themselves as the victims of Columbus’s advent-people of color, minorities, members of the working class, people, in a word, who claimed they had a different collective memory of what in most schools was celebrated as a triumph of advancement and the collective march forward of humanity.” (pg. 177)

I think Edward Said brings up a very interesting point in this passage. Throughout my academic career, I cannot recall a time where I was taught a history lesson that took into consideration the perspective of the other side. For example, going off of the Christopher Columbus example, I remember first learning about his voyage to America when I was in elementary school, and nothing negative was ever mentioned about that event in history. There was hardly any mention of the Native Americans he encountered while “ discovering the new land”. While I understand why the gritty details of the raping and pillaging of the Native Americans who first had this land were left out of a elementary school curriculum, I find it interesting and at times alarming that it was still left out of the many history lessons I had even as I got older.
The fact that many history lessons tend to leave out the more incriminating details of certain controversial events in history does not come as a surprise to me, but has sparked my interest in the concept of what exactly is ‘history’? Of course one may find it hard to challenge the cold hard facts of history, but what if some of those facts are not actual facts but are different altered parts of a story that over time has all mixed together to become what we now accept as history.
If this is the case, then could we consider our history to be different from another group’s history, even if the two groups of people experienced the exact same event? This ties back into what Said was saying about how the victims of Columbus’s arrival remember that event. The people whose land was invaded and taken from them no doubt have a different perspective on that event in history then we do. So that brings me back to my previous statement on how can we be sure of our own history, if our recollection of history is at times very different from others?

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12 erinberman 2 May 2010 at 10:01 pm

Erin Berman
Position Statement #2
May 5, 2010
COMM 338

According to Boler in the article, “The Daily Show, Crossfire, and the Will to Tell the Truth,” Jon Stewart’s critique during his Crossfire interview provoked Tucker Carlson to use the “tu quoque” fallacy and question Stewart’s integrity. Boler writes, “Another central focus of online discussion is the question of whether a comedian should or can be expected to play the role of a serious journalist.”
In my opinion, a comedian should not be required, expected or assumed to play the role of a serious journalist. Even in the arena of political satire, comedy is not subject to the same professional bias that is so prevalent in journalism. This is precisely what makes satire such an interesting outlet; satirists can get away with saying whatever they want because it can be discounted as “comedy.” It is prudent for anyone to assume that a comedian, whose show is endorsed by a comedy network, should or can be expected to address issues as a professional journalist would.
However, the current state of mainstream media and news coverage does a poor job at adequately addressing the issues, and the professional bias of journalism often works to undermine political commentary. What is more alarming to me is that current mainstream news media has driven away viewers interested in political critique; which makes Stewart’s show that much more appealing. The popularity of Stewart’s show attests to the fact that the very infrastructure of corporate news media is fundamentally flawed.
Then the question remains, even if Stewart should not be expected to play the role of a serious journalist based on his vocation as a comedian, does he have an ethical responsibility to his viewers to do so? Once again, I argue not. His viewers are people educated on current political events, (they would not be able to follow the satire unaware otherwise), and are not coming to him to get the “facts.” Instead, they are viewing his show to find pleasure in his expose of the “truth” of an event or political situation. Jon Stewart is not a reporter or journalist, and it is not his job to cover the news seriously or with professional bias. What is important is the way he frames the news and the facts in such an exaggerated way as to expose them for what they really are. Jon Stewart is powerful because he is a satirist, and if he were expected to play the role of a serious journalist, he would not be such an earnest and exposing voice in political commentary.

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13 Spencer McCluskey 3 May 2010 at 3:20 pm

“But we are at war, and we here at THE DAILY SHOW will do our best to keep you informed of any late-breaking…humor we can find. Of course, our show is obviously at a disadvantage compared to the many news sources that we’re competing with… at a disadvantage in several respects. For one thing, we are fake. They are not. So in terms of credibility we are, well, oddly enough, actually about even. We’re about even.” – Jon Stewart

Megan Boler’s “The Daily Show, Crossfire, and the Will to Truth” is an amazing article on Jon Stewart’s honest display of character on Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala’s show, Crossfire. Everyone knows Jon Stewart as the comical host of The Daily Show, but during his visit to Crossfire you saw a more serious side from him. For those of you that don’t know CNN’s Crossfire is a show that gives both the Republican (Carlson) and Democratic (Begala) view on political issues. They invited Jon Stewart to come on as a comedian to do what he does best and have a fun conversation with the two co-hosts. Stewart had other plans in mind for his appearance and called out Carlson and Begala. Stewart accuses the ‘bi-partisan’ co-hosts of hurting America through partisan hackery theatre, failing to engage in genuine civilized debate, and not serving news televisions responsibility to public discourse. Stewart’s comments sent the co-host into an uproar, especially Tucker Carlson. Tucker turned the same argument onto Stewart, saying that he fails to upload the credibility of a Journalist. Jon Stewart rebuttal with the fact that puppets making prank calls opens before his show and that the public should not rely on Comedy Central for news.
Jon Stewart’s main complaint of the CNN show was that they are consistently hurting America by giving into the strategies of the media world and by being partisan. Jon Stewart was praised for his complaints towards Crossfire because he was standing up for the common person asking what is suppose to be a credible news outlet to give truthful news. Stewart’s visit was not looked at as a “rant”, but more of showing disbelief towards the lies that are filtered out of what is suppose to be a credible news source. Stewart’s show is also referred to as, the best fake news program, yet people rely more on his news program because he has pulled the cover off of the corporate journalist who are there to flatter the politicians, instead of challenging them. The Daily Show news isn’t fake; Stewart just adds humorous commentary to the real news to make a point of the lack of honest journalism.

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14 Desiree Benet 3 May 2010 at 6:32 pm

Desiree Benet
April 28, 2010
Media and Conflict – Position paper #1
Emily West’s article titled, “Selling Canada to Canadians: Collective Memory, National Identity, and Popular Culture,” is a clear, but thorough argument of the importance of collective memory for Canadians and the future of Canadian political and social culture. She argues that an effort to create collective memory is inherently good, and it has had a positive effect on Canadian nationalism, by binding the gap between the Anglophone and francophone split. I support and agree with West’s position. She uses two media examples, Heritage Minutes and Canada: A People’s History, to reinforce her claims and they serves as an example that collective security is causing a social, political, and cultural change in Canada.
I could only read the first page of this article before I was completely lost and had to look up the definition of collective memory. For non-communication majors, like me, understanding this argument would have been impossible without a clear definition of collective memory. What I found was that collective memory is – separate from the notion of individual memory, a collective memory of a common culture and the ability of a community to remember events. With this definition in mind, West’s claim that collective security is vital to the survival of a nation holds truth. Collective memory brings unity emotionally and physically; furthermore, citizens feel bound to their nation and therefore will be more likely to act in its interests.
I “YouTube” a few Heritage Minutes to better understand the context of the article and I found that they were interesting, enticing, attractive and so short and simple that I can easily recall the main point and theme of each one. Not only does West argue the importance of collective security, but also the effectiveness of these two programs as models, to create and sustain collective memory. I think she proves the importance of these two programs and I agree that they serve as an excellent methodological form to secure collective memory.
I have stated my position of support for West’s argument, but I would like to take her argument a step further and challenge it on a slightly different level. In her article, she explains two approaches to strengthening collective memory while trying to avoid being accused of sponsoring propaganda. She goes on to say, “…events of the past are framed in terms of their condition or relevance to the present shape of the nation-state. Therefore, these programs ultimately reveal their purpose and, as collective memory scholars might predict, press the past into the service of present aims” (West, 214). Taking into account class discussions and other readings I can’t help but questions, is true objectivity possible? In an effort to educate and create a more patriotic and unified country, have these producers set and agenda? I believe they have, and these agendas range from political unity, national pride, and better education, to name a few. Yet, why is this inherently good? “These programs are not just popular television; they are supposed to be good for you” (West, 213). Therefore, I pose this question for discussion, are these two media outlets, Heritage Minutes and Canada: A People’s History, truly objective? Do they hold an agenda behind the cover of collective memory? Do you agree, is it inherently good?

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