FROM MONOPOLIZING MEMORY TO CO-CREATING IT: OPENNESS AND EQUITY IN THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM

Abstract

With the growing proliferation of digital media into the memory practices of cultural institutions and ordinary people, questions about a growing dependence on monopolistic technology companies on the creation, access and preservation of collective memory have emerged. For cultural institutions that rely on social media to boost their audience engagement, this also means that they lose part of their role as public educators, while ordinary people fear the loss of ownership over their personal memories. This paper proposes equitable approaches to the current digital ecosystem, that is built on the extraction and profit-making of personal data, that can be developed by looking beyond the current market, envisioning possibilities for related policies that could enable the re-design of the current memory ecosystem towards social inclusion. The argument is based on a combination of ethnographic research into initiatives that foster the openness of knowledge by enabling fair practices to be realized in the competitive sphere of the digital economy. Building upon work such as the MyData and the DECODE project, as well as enquiries into personal memory practices of youth living in Germany and the UK.