Critical Reflection

In an attempt to contextualise the past experience of my family life with my own present life experience, I have constructed a relatively effective representational strategy (Williams). Using a documentary style of narration and emotive language, I constructed the story around the life experiences of my family members, of which I was not a part of. That makes the story inauthentic (Landsberg, Alison), because what I remember is not part of my own memory, but I am still able to transmit the stories that I’ve been told to me by parents and my sisters. The way I imagined life under socialism in the Soviet Union is represented by the pictures that I’ve chosen and the text that I have composed, making the work mediated and not a natural representation of the past (Landsberg, Alison).

The use of technology allowed me to not only reconstruct my own view on the history and way of life in the USSR, but it has also enabled me to evoke feelings and immerse readers in the representation. The photos reflect the idea of the text written and are closely woven together, so that readers may rely on the picture to comprehend the main idea in the text.

The blog can be shared between many people online within seconds, which makes another principle of prosthetic memory work. The story can also be easily spread through social networks with the functions available under each blog post. People who might find the topic of communism interesting can forward the link to their friends.

This story can easily become part of one’s “archive of experiences” (Landsberg, Alison). As it is placed on the internet and can be disseminated broadly in such a short period of time, people of different cultures are able to access some personal insight into communism. Another reason this blog post is able to influence people on a bodily level (Landsberg, Alison), so much so that it becomes a part of their own memory, on which they will further rely on when remembering the theme of communism, is because of the nature of the theme/content itself. Communism is regarded as evil by the capitalist world, and many people do not challenge their views on communism due to a dispersed negative attitude towards the regime. And as the story represents a slightly different perspective on the political system and therewith is based on real life story, it may also incite people to question their existing knowledge about communism.

Bibliography
Landsberg, Alison. "Prosthetic Memory." Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 25-48.
Williams, Linda. "Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History, and the New Documentary." Film Quarterly 46.3 1993: 9-21.