Technology,global flows and local memories

Abstract

This article presents part of the findings of a wider empirical study focusing on memories of three generations in Mexico. The study investigated the relationships between the three generational groups, their access to, and reception of, different media technologies, and how these affected the construction of their media memories. The authors show how social class, gender and age, and different media technologies (such as radio, television and the internet) interact to form media memories of ‘global’ events. Access to, and familiarity with, these material support systems combined with the social distribution of specific kinds of cognitive dispositions are the key conditions for making sense of media messages. Contesting some assumptions about the ‘globality’ of media messages and experiences, this article’s conclusions and findings provide empirical evidence of a more complex situation. The study found only a limited ‘global’ effect on the lower social classes, who form the majority of the population; in contrast, it was the privileged social classes of peripheral countries who ‘behaved’ in a global way and expressed their memories as ‘global’.