Social Movements, Memory and Media

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction, Background and Methods

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 3-11

   3. Memory and Movements: A Long Research Path

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 13-35

   4. The Student Movements in Italy and Spain and How to Study Their Memories

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 37-55

3. Memory in Discourse: Representations of the 1960s and 1970s in the Media Forum

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 57-57

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   2. Contentious Memories of the Italian Student Movement: The ‘Long 1968’ in the Field of Public Memory

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 59-118

   3. Contentious Memories of the Spanish Student Movement: Representations of the Spanish 1968 in the Public Memory of the Transition

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 119-175

4. Memory in Action: Mnemonic Practices, Collective Identities and Strategic Choices in Contemporary Student Movements

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177

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   2. Syntax: The Forms of Memory

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 179-199

   3. Semantics: The Competing Narratives of Student Movement Memories

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 201-244

   4. Pragmatics: Memory, Identity, and Strategy

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 245-290

   5. Conclusions

      • Lorenzo Zamponi

      Pages 291-318

5. Back Matter

   Pages 319-339

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Cultural factors shape the symbolic environment in which contentious politics take place. Among these factors, collective memories are particularly relevant: they can help collective action by providing symbolic material from the past, but at the same time they can constrain people's ability to mobilise by imposing proscriptions and prescriptions.

This book analyses the relationship between social movements and collective memories: how do social movements participate in the building of public memory? And how does public memory, and in particular the media’s representation of a contentious past, influence strategic choices in contemporary movements? To answer these questions the book draws its focus on the evolution of the representation of specific events in the Italian and Spanish student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, through qualitative interviews to contemporary student activists in both countries, it investigates the role of past waves of contention in shaping the present through the publicly discussed image of the past.

• social movements
• collective memory
• public memory
• activism
• student movements
• terrorism
• social contention
• implicit memory
• media representations

“While a quite popular topic in cultural history, memory has been  rarely addressed from social movement studies. With its careful conceptualization and rich empirical analysis of mnemonic practices around transformative protest events in mass media and among movement activists, Lorenzo Zamponi’s work gives a fundamental contribution to the bridging of memory studies and studies on contentious politics.” (Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore)

“A truly innovative study of the role historical memory plays in social movements. This richly empirical comparative study is path-breaking in its conceptualization and design.” (Ron Eyerman, Yale University)

• Scuola Normale Superiore, Firenze, Italy

  Lorenzo Zamponi

Lorenzo Zamponi is a Research Fellow in sociology and political science at the Scuola Normale Superiore, in the Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali (Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences) in Italy, where he is part of the COSMOS (Centre on Social Movement Studies) research team. He holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute. His research interests include memory, contentious politics and media analysis.

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