The role of the internet in testimony: the case of the ‘Forgotten Australians’

This article examines the case of the Forgotten Australians as an opportunity to examine the role of the internet in the presentation of testimony. ‘Forgotten Australians’ are a group who suffered abuse and neglect after being removed from their parents – either in Australia or in the UK – and place...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Media, culture & society culture & society, 2014-11, Vol.36 (8), p.1151-1167
Main Authors: Adkins, Barbara, Hancox, Donna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
Australia
Australian history
Campaigns
Child abuse & neglect
Church & state
Churches
Collective memory
Injunctions
Internet
Marginality
Marginalized groups
Media
Memory
Museums
Narratives
Parents
Parents & parenting
Past experiences
Social Closure
Social exclusion
Social groups
Social integration
Testimony
Trauma
U.S.A
United Kingdom
Web 2.0
Websites
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Summary:This article examines the case of the Forgotten Australians as an opportunity to examine the role of the internet in the presentation of testimony. ‘Forgotten Australians’ are a group who suffered abuse and neglect after being removed from their parents – either in Australia or in the UK – and placed in Church- and State-run institutions in Australia between 1930 and 1970. The campaign by this profoundly marginalized group coincided with the decade in which the opportunities of Web 2.0 were seen to be diffusing throughout different social groups, and were considered a tool for social inclusion. We outline a conceptual framework that positions the role of the internet as an environment in which the difficult relationships between painful past experiences and contemporary injunctions to remember them, are negotiated. We then apply this framework to the analysis of case examples of posts and interaction on websites with web 2.0 functionality: YouTube and the National Museum of Australia. The analysis points to commonalities and differences in the agency of the internet in these two contexts, arguing that in both cases the websites provided support for the development of a testimony-like narrative and the claiming, sharing and acknowledgement of loss.
ISSN:0163-4437
1460-3675
DOI:10.1177/0163443714545002