POLITICAL MEMORY AS AGONISTIC PRACTICE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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Abstract (English)

Digital platforms have become key spaces for revitalizing and challenging cultural memory. The article claims that the political power of digital memory comes from reactivating historically embodied  and  ritualized  mnemonic  forms  within  platformed  infrastructures  of  visibility. Drawing on memory studies, multimodality, and affordance theory, the article conceptualizes these processes through the notion of semio-somatic memory highlightening how mnemonic expressions endure and gain political impact through the sedimentation of bodily practices, sensory  modalities,  and  semiotic  structures.  Under  contemporary  conditions,  mnemonic authority shifts from mainly top-down institutional control of meaning to more bottom-up, platform-driven  processes  of  visibility,  circulation,  and  affective  resonance,  partially democratizing the creation and contestation of public memory.
The argument is developed through a multimodal examination of how the slogan “Smrt fašizmu, svoboda narodu” circulates on X and Facebook today. Originating from the WWII Yugoslav partisan resistance, the slogan originally served as a confrontational and mobilizing performative  act.  In  post-war  socialist  Yugoslavia,  it  was  institutionalized  and  ritualized, becoming part of state ceremonies and educational activities, where its antagonistic power was partially diminished even as it became deeply embodied and internalized. During these initial stages, the slogan accumulated a layered semio-somatic charge through repetition, collective  vocalization,  and  bodily  enactment.  In  the  post-socialist  and  digital  era,  this embodied mnemonic significance allows for its reactivation and resignification within new political contexts. The case shows how embodied mnemonic forms endure across different political  regimes  and  media  landscapes,  being  reactivated,  resignified,  and  contested  in present-day political struggles. Rather than functioning as stable references to the past, these forms serve as active political interventions within agonistic public spheres.
This transformation can be understood as memorification: the accelerated activation and recirculation of historically sedimented mnemonic forms within algorithmically structured environments. Digital memory, therefore, becomes a form of political contestation where embodiment, multimodality, and platform affordances jointly condition public visibility and mobilization.

Notes (English)