Page 208 - Consuming Media

01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 195

Media are used as tools for shaping individual and collective identities, histories and
places, in communication with the cultural identities, narrative histories and inhab-
ited places of others. Our study has offered ample evidence of how these dimensions
are mutually linked. In agreement with Walter Benjamin’s view on history as a battle-
field where official cultural heritage confronts repressed and transformative counter-
histories, we have traced various ways in which people construct personal and local
memories to give meaning to their lives. Confirming Doreen Massey’s theses, we have
shown how spaces are filled with co-existent multiple trajectories and are used in
many and often contradictory ways. We have made use of Paul Ricoeur’s under-
standing of parallels and interactions between time and space in such processes of
identification, and put an emphasis on the role of communication media for forming
modern life. While raising many new questions, our odyssey has thus at least
managed to highlight many of the key issues in late-modern society and culture.
This concludes our walk through the passages of contemporary media consump-
tion. But, dear fellow flâneurs, is there really any exit?

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