Constructing the tellability of intergenerational memory narratives in collective remembering in StoryCorps, a digital memory-sharing platform

Abstract

In the present contribution, I explore how telling intergenerational memory episodes ensures the narrative tellability and memorability of autobiographical memories in StoryCorps, a digital memory-sharing platform and archive. I first pinpoint the structural and conceptual connections between narrative and autobiographical, intergenerational, and collective memory, highlighting the possible effects of digitalization and archiving on narrative structure. Then, I analyze four autobiographical stories with intergenerational family memories from the StoryCorps database to demonstrate how the storyteller constructs tellability and memorability by strategically centering the intergenerational memory episode. I conclude that sharing individual memories on digital storytelling platforms accomplishes complex identity work for two reasons. First, it facilitates the narrative transformation of these remembered events into digitally mediated collective memory. Second, storytelling becomes a source of agency and cultural responsibility. With its focused analysis of digitalized private memories, the article contributes to understanding how digital storytelling and memory-sharing mediate mnemonic practices by recording, storing, editing, and sharing autobiographical memory narratives for undetermined audiences in an indefinite time frame.