Remembering: Amnesia and Recollection

Since the 1980s, memory researchers have explored how recollections move from temporary short-term memory to longer-term storage. Why do some painful or traumatic memories persist? Why do some violent news reports or violent films stick so firmly in the memory? Research suggests that emotional resonance is implicated.^[1056] If an event is associated with or coincides with a heightened emotional state, then the memory will be retained firmly.

To explore how this works in detail I draw on some of my empirical research, which included asking over 400 respondents in mixed groups from all over the UK and beyond which images of violence from the news they could remember. Most of this questioning took place before the 7 July 2005 London bombings, but over three years soon after 9/11. It now provides a historical insight into some of the most remembered stories during that period. The most commonly recalled violent images included many from Iraq: vehicles ablaze after car bomb explosions in Baghdad; a marine shooting an injured man in a mosque in Fallujah. Many recollected pictures of children running out of School No.i in Beslan, South Russia; a shattered train after a terrorist attack in Madrid; and, most consistently, a number of images related to the events in Manhattan on ii September 200i. Many were able to describe exactly where they were when they saw this news. Such remembering, where individuals recall precise details, is often described as ‘flashbulb memory'.^[1057] Fifteen years later many can still recall where they were and

what they saw of the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, not all viewers live in the USA and Western Europe: all violence takes place where someone lives. Viewers who live close to conflict or who experience violence first-hand, find this colours their memories. A Serbian academic from Belgrade recalls pictures of the state television station damaged by NATO bombing in April 1999, and she admits that her memory of the media coverage is reinforced by having seen the devastation with her own eyes. Others found that the recycling of graphic news images led to more immediate recall. A middle-aged Korean man vividly recalled images from the 1980 Kwangju massacre, in part he said, because twenty years later images from the massacre, such as a student being beaten by a soldier, were commonly reused by local Korean television stations and newspapers. These media images reinforced his own actual memories.

Alongside proximity and repetition/recycling there is another reason for viewers remembering news images: identification. In Northern Ireland, out of thirty Protestants aged between 39 and 69 years old not one recalled images from ‘Bloody Sunday’ (30 January 1972), where thirteen Catholics had been killed, whereas they did recall images of IRA violence. Memories which make a significant emotional impact tend to be retained in what is often described by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists as the episodic or autobiographical memory.

Identification can substitute for proximity. Take as an example the massive response to the shooting of fifteen 5- and 6-year-olds and their teacher in Dunblane, Scotland, on 13 March, 1996, by people from all over the world. News about the shootings at a Port Arthur tourist site in Tasmania (1996) and at Columbine high school in Colorado, USA (1999) were remembered by many respondents in Scotland even though they were many thousands of miles away from the event. Resonating with the Dunblane story, these distant tragedies were brought close by immediate news images and reports.^[1058] Many respondents also did not distinguish between seeing specta­cular acts of terrorism and seeing images from recent wars. It was easier to remember the spectacular event rather than the context in which it was set. Domestic violence, which, as suggested earlier, is normally left outside the news frame, was never recalled, despite its being ubiquitous and terrible.

It is also important to note that, alongside television, the internet, news­papers and other channels play an important role. One respondent said: ‘The most powerful images I had from July 7 were from narratives in newspapers.' He contrasts the constant flow of images on television, which he believes ‘reduces or replaces analytical content', with the narratives in newspapers and analysis on the radio, which he often finds far more memorable. Since ‘the mid 1950s the majority of viewers have identified television as their main source of world news, ahead of the press', with 69 per cent of respondents in a large 1994 survey in Britain putting television as their primary source for world news.^[1059] But television news is not produced and received in a communicative vacuum. Younger viewers, and now also older ones, are increasingly turning to web-based news. Dramatic news images are regularly reused and discussed in different media. Circulation and discussion contribute to certain images being remembered more than others.

Having said all this, there is truth in Montaigne's widely quoted aphorism: ‘Memory tells us not what we choose, but what it pleases.' There is an untameable quality to memories that makes it hard to control or to predict which ones will persist or recur. Nevertheless, repetition, proximity and identification will continue to be important in determining which media images of violence are remembered.