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Publications (10 of 59) Show all publications
Merrill, S. (2025). Hybrid methodologies for studying social and cultural memory in the post-digital age. In: Qi Wang; Andrew Hoskins (Ed.), The remaking of memory in the age of the internet and social media: (pp. 285-302). Oxford University Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Hybrid methodologies for studying social and cultural memory in the post-digital age
2025 (English)In: The remaking of memory in the age of the internet and social media / [ed] Qi Wang; Andrew Hoskins, Oxford University Press, 2025, p. 285-302Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2025
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
Sociology; media and communication studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-234644 (URN)10.1093/oso/9780197661260.003.0015 (DOI)2-s2.0-105004960070 (Scopus ID)9780197661260 (ISBN)9780197661284 (ISBN)
Available from: 2025-01-27 Created: 2025-01-27 Last updated: 2025-05-28Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. & Copsey, N. (2025). Retweet solidarity: transatlantic Twitter connectivity between militant antifascists in the USA and UK. Social Movement Studies, 24(1), 1-21
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Retweet solidarity: transatlantic Twitter connectivity between militant antifascists in the USA and UK
2025 (English)In: Social Movement Studies, ISSN 1474-2837, E-ISSN 1474-2829, Vol. 24, no 1, p. 1-21Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In this article we explore the extent of the digital connectivity and character of the mediated solidarity discernible between a selection of militant antifascist groups in the USA and UK on Twitter. By studying the geographical scalarity of the retweet practices of six case study groups in these two countries (from New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Brighton, Liverpool, and London) and the content of a sub-sample of these groups’ retweets we highlight that their Twitter connectivity is relatively limited. We also suggest that the sorts of mediated solidarity, or as we specifically refer to it here ‘retweet solidarity’, that this connectivity reflects is rather shallow. As such the article’s broader contributions relate to firstly the need for studies of digital connectivity within social movements that do not preemptively assume that translocal or transnational activism is an automatic by-product of social media use, and secondly the necessity to continue problematizing the idea of solidarity in digital contexts.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2025
Keywords
Mediated solidarity, antifa, digital antifascism, transnationalism, translocality, social media
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Research subject
Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-201298 (URN)10.1080/14742837.2022.2142547 (DOI)000884526200001 ()2-s2.0-85142181014 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-03351
Available from: 2022-11-28 Created: 2022-11-28 Last updated: 2025-01-28Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S., Gardell, M. & Lindgren, S. (2024). How “the left” meme: analyzing taboo in the internet memes of r/DankLeft. New Media and Society
Open this publication in new window or tab >>How “the left” meme: analyzing taboo in the internet memes of r/DankLeft
2024 (English)In: New Media and Society, ISSN 1461-4448, E-ISSN 1461-7315Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

This article explores how “the left” meme and the character and emotional reception of taboo-breaking therein via the case of r/DankLeft—a USA-centric Marxist, Anarchist, and Democratic Socialist Internet meme community. It asks: what themes do popular r/DankLeft Internet memes relate to, how does taboo feature within popular r/DankLeft Internet memes, and can any differences in the ways in which taboo-related r/DankLeft Internet memes are received be discerned. In turn, it carries out a thematic analysis of 366 popular memes, a multimodal critical discourse analysis of 41 taboo-related popular memes, and a comparative sentiment analysis of the comments these and other memes have received in r/DankLeft. The article finds that popular memes in r/DankLeft primarily relate to perceived threats to its community of users. It also shows that taboo-breaking does feature in r/DankLeft memes and that when it does correlative patterns emerge in terms of popularity and emotional reception.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2024
Keywords
Digital culture, discourse analysis, Internet memes, left-wing, radical left, Reddit, sentiment analysis, taboo-breaking, thematic analysis
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
Sociology; media and communication studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-221499 (URN)10.1177/14614448241232144 (DOI)001173373300001 ()2-s2.0-85185943739 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-03351
Available from: 2024-02-26 Created: 2024-02-26 Last updated: 2025-04-24
Jethro, D. & Merrill, S. (2024). "Next stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo strasse": place names, de-commemoration and memory activism in Berlin. In: Sarah Gensburger; Jenny Wüstenberg (Ed.), De-commemoration: removing statues and renaming places (pp. 210-220). New York: Berghahn Books
Open this publication in new window or tab >>"Next stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo strasse": place names, de-commemoration and memory activism in Berlin
2024 (English)In: De-commemoration: removing statues and renaming places / [ed] Sarah Gensburger; Jenny Wüstenberg, New York: Berghahn Books, 2024, p. 210-220Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New York: Berghahn Books, 2024
Series
Worlds of memory ; 12
National Category
History Sociology
Research subject
History; Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-215062 (URN)2-s2.0-85172768394 (Scopus ID)9781805391074 (ISBN)9781805393801 (ISBN)
Available from: 2023-10-06 Created: 2023-10-06 Last updated: 2023-10-24Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. & Rigney, A. (2024). Remembering activism: means and ends. Memory Studies, 17(5), 997-1003
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Remembering activism: means and ends
2024 (English)In: Memory Studies, ISSN 1750-6980, E-ISSN 1750-6999, Vol. 17, no 5, p. 997-1003Article in journal, Editorial material (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

This editorial introduces the 12 articles collected in this special issue on Remembering Activism: Explorations in the memory-activism nexus. It frames the articles within current debates in the field of memory studies and social movement studies on the entanglements between memory work, on the one hand, and activism directed towards social transformation, on the other. In particular, it highlights the ways in which the memory of earlier activism is mobilised within later movements; in the process, it also identifies various forms of activist memory work where remembrance is an integral part of the activist repertoire and one of the means used to achieve political ends.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2024
Keywords
activist memory work, mediation, memory-activism nexus, mobilisation, protest, social movements
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-231193 (URN)10.1177/17506980241262390 (DOI)2-s2.0-85206145070 (Scopus ID)
Funder
EU, European Research Council, 788572
Available from: 2024-10-24 Created: 2024-10-24 Last updated: 2024-10-25Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. (2024). Remembering like a state: surveillance databases, digital activist traces and the repressive potential of mediated prospective memory. Memory Studies, 17(5), 1177-1194
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Remembering like a state: surveillance databases, digital activist traces and the repressive potential of mediated prospective memory
2024 (English)In: Memory Studies, ISSN 1750-6980, E-ISSN 1750-6999, Vol. 17, no 5, p. 1177-1194Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Departing from personal memories of protests in London and Berlin, in this article I make space within the memory-activism nexus to consider how contemporary activists are remembered by that which they conventionally target: the state. To do this, I first recount existing understandings of that nexus and the position of the state therein. I then emphasise how states remember activists via police surveillance databases before discussing the digital activist traces held in such databases via the concept of mediated prospective memory. Thereafter, I empirically ground these conceptual contributions via a discussion of the surveillance databases used in the United Kingdom and Germany and the growing adoption of automated facial recognition technology in these countries. This discussion relies on the work of police monitoring groups whose activism contributes, alongside the various actions of the state and its agencies that I foreground, to the complexity of the memory-activism nexus.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2024
Keywords
activism, data, dataism, facial recognition, memory-activism nexus, police, policing, power, protest, statecraft
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-231039 (URN)10.1177/17506980241262187 (DOI)001330014100001 ()2-s2.0-85206355758 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-03351
Available from: 2024-10-24 Created: 2024-10-24 Last updated: 2024-10-24Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. (2024). Remembering the building blocks of socialism: the material and mediatised (n)ostalgia of East German plastic construction toys. In: Genevieve Godin; Þóra Pétursdóttir; Estelle Praet; John Schofield (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of archaeology and plastics: (pp. 371-384). Routledge
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Remembering the building blocks of socialism: the material and mediatised (n)ostalgia of East German plastic construction toys
2024 (English)In: The Routledge handbook of archaeology and plastics / [ed] Genevieve Godin; Þóra Pétursdóttir; Estelle Praet; John Schofield, Routledge, 2024, p. 371-384Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

As LEGO was being introduced to West Germany in the mid-1950s, similar plastic construction toy systems started to be produced in East Germany by companies including PEBE. While these companies no longer exist, their products remain part of the material culture of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Subsequently, and like many other GDR products, they have engendered specifically East German forms of nostalgia otherwise referred to as ‘Ostalgie’ (a portmanteau of the German words for east (ost) and nostalgia (nostalgie)) or, in its anglicised form, ostalgia. Adopting a contemporary archaeological perspective, this chapter draws on the notion of object itineraries in order to trace and track these companies and their products across time and thus explore the material and mediatised forms of (n)ostalgia that circulate around the remnant plastic building blocks of GDR state socialism. First it traces the history of PEBE but also that of another company PLASTECK (later FORMO) and their products. Secondly it discusses the politics of play surrounding these products initially as toys that contributed to the socialisation of children in the GDR and then later as heritage and material foci of ostalgia which indexed political distinctions between East and West Germany. Thirdly it follows these companies and their products onto social media in order to track the forms of mediatised (n)ostalgia and autobiographical memory that are starting to circulate around them online.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2024
Series
Routledge handbooks
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Archaeology Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
media and communication studies; Sociology; Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-231968 (URN)10.4324/9781003272311-25 (DOI)001381436700025 ()2-s2.0-85210714733 (Scopus ID)9781032223728 (ISBN)9781032223742 (ISBN)9781003272311 (ISBN)
Available from: 2024-11-19 Created: 2024-11-19 Last updated: 2025-04-24Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. (2024). [Review] The state of (and in) memory activism research [Review]. Memory Studies, 17(5), 1235-1238
Open this publication in new window or tab >>[Review] The state of (and in) memory activism research
2024 (English)In: Memory Studies, ISSN 1750-6980, E-ISSN 1750-6999, Vol. 17, no 5, p. 1235-1238Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

Composed of a foreword, introduction and six parts (each with their own introductory discussion) and, in total, 78 individual short essays involving 91 contributors, The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism is without doubt the broadest discussion of memory activism to date. For the organisational feats needed to bring such a publication to completion, its editors and their supporting team of section editors should be congratulated. Reviewing such a wide-ranging handbook comes with challenges. I have read about a third of it including essays from each of its parts and in time I will read much more. My review cannot reflect on each of the well-written and researched essays (although I mention some). Instead, it discusses what the handbook conveys about the current state of memory activism research more generally. It also prioritises my own current research interests, not least those regarding the place of the state within the manifold connections between memory and activism.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2024
National Category
Sociology
Research subject
Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-231952 (URN)10.1177/17506980241261965 (DOI)001336920100001 ()
Note

Review of: The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism. Yifat Gutman and Jenny Wüstenberg (eds) with Irit Dekel, Kaitlin M Murphy, Benjamin Nienass, Joanna Wawrzyniak and Kerry Whigham.

Available from: 2024-11-19 Created: 2024-11-19 Last updated: 2024-11-19Bibliographically approved
Merrill, S. (2024). ‘Splintering’ the memory-activism nexus: state and market forces in the vortex of civic memory. In: Astrid Erll; Susanne Knittel; Jenny Wüstenberg (Ed.), Dynamics, mediation, mobilization: doing memory studies with Ann Rigney (pp. 361-368). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter
Open this publication in new window or tab >>‘Splintering’ the memory-activism nexus: state and market forces in the vortex of civic memory
2024 (English)In: Dynamics, mediation, mobilization: doing memory studies with Ann Rigney / [ed] Astrid Erll; Susanne Knittel; Jenny Wüstenberg, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2024, p. 361-368Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2024
Series
Media and Cultural Memory, ISSN 1613-8961 ; 41
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
media and communication studies; Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-234643 (URN)10.1515/9783111439273-051 (DOI)9783111434438 (ISBN)9783111439273 (ISBN)9783111439433 (ISBN)
Available from: 2025-01-27 Created: 2025-01-27 Last updated: 2025-02-11Bibliographically approved
Smit, R., Smits, T. & Merrill, S. (2024). Stochastic remembering and distributed mnemonic agency: recalling twentieth century activists with ChatGPT. Memory studies review, 1(2), 209-230
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Stochastic remembering and distributed mnemonic agency: recalling twentieth century activists with ChatGPT
2024 (English)In: Memory studies review, E-ISSN 2949-8902, Vol. 1, no 2, p. 209-230Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper introduces the concept of stochastic remembering and uses two prompt engineering techniques to critically examine the text generated by ai chatbots. These techniques – step-by-step prompting and chain of thought reasoning – are then experimentally applied to understand how ChatGPT, the most commonly used ai chatbot, shapes how we remember historical activists. This experiment suggests that hegemonic forms of memory influence the data on which these chatbots are trained and underlines how stochastic patterns affect how humans and ai systems collectively remember the past. Humans and ai systems prompt each other to remember. In conclusion, the paper argues that ai chatbots are a new kind of mnemonic actor that, in interaction with users, renders a probabilistic past. Methodologically, the paper introduces, in an explorative way, an experimental method that can reveal the dynamics of stochastic remembering.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Brill Nijhoff, 2024
Keywords
ChatGPT, Large Language Models, memory, remembering, distributed agency, activism, probability, stochastic memory
National Category
Sociology Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-238514 (URN)10.1163/29498902-202400015 (DOI)
Projects
Artificial Intelligence and Social Memory
Available from: 2025-05-06 Created: 2025-05-06 Last updated: 2025-05-07Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-9572-5922

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