Sixteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

Cultural narratives, the communal knowledge of a people or a nation conveyed through stories, myths, and histories, provide a means for an individual or group to understand their existence, reality, and place within those constructs. In a fluid landscape of ever-burgeoning stories, identities resolve, values coalesce, and understandings of the past, present, and future take shape. Mass media has always played a key role in shaping cultural identities by propagating and promoting select cultural narratives. The modern digital media sphere has democratized that role, increasing participants’ ability to find an audience in a given discourse, foster a critical mass of agreement, and forge new cultural “knowledge.” Media democratization can give voice to underrepresented communities, enabling them to retake their own narratives; however, it can also magnify the influence of minority positions, allowing fringe ideologies to distort, manipulate, or even subsume cultural narratives across political, economic, or racial divides. Changes in the transmission and consumption of cultural narratives call into question their function and efficacy in modern society, the provenance of the knowledge they convey, and their primacy for future generations. Does the continual remediation of a group’s story degrade the value of its cultural memory? What happens to the sense of belonging fostered by cohesive cultural narratives when those narratives are sealed in media ecosystems governed by consensus and unanimity? As participants in the digital-media community, do we have a responsibility to ensure the authenticity of the “knowledge” perpetuated through new or amended cultural narratives?