CONSTRUCTION OF

MEDIATED MEMORIES
THROUGH
FOOD VLOGS
Ms. Anupama T P, Research Scholar, SRM IST, Kattankulathur
Dr. M Subbulakshmi, SRM IST, Kattankulathur
Memory and Culture
◦ Relationship between memory and culture
◦ In the digital media
◦ Selective, fragmented, unstable – embodied and structuralised within material objects
◦ Memory and time
◦ Collective remembering – material, symbolic and functional features
Personal and Communal Memories
◦ Autobiographical memory integrates the sociocultural with the personal
◦ Shaped by environment’s norms & values
◦ Children’s sense of self
◦ constant remodelling; current wants, desires, ambitions, projections and exposure
◦ Social psychologists – memory and self – material and symbolic ways – role of media
objects
Media and Memories
◦ Shapes both our personal and collective cultural memories
◦ Changing interpretation of our past events, intertwining with our remembrances
◦ José Van Djick in her Mediated Memories in the Digital Age:
“Mediated memories are the activities and objects we produce and appropriate by means of media
technologies, for creating and re-creating a sense of past, present, and future of ourselves in relation to
others.”
◦ Ubiquity of digital technology – reshapes our view of the past
Internet, a Mediating Tool
◦ Development in Internet Technologies – Different activities – various forms of
gratification
◦ One widely used application – Youtube – stories, talents, expertise
◦ Food Vlogs – evolution
◦ Food vloggers – preparation and consumption of food – a wholesome experience; a
culinary journey – embellishing the aesthetics
◦ Much of the past cultural memories of the audience – triggered; altered.
Food Vlogs & Mediated Memories
◦ John S Allen in his The Omnivorous Mind:
“Food is an effective trigger of deeper memories of feelings and emotions, internal states of the
mind and body.”
◦ Emotional quotient - influence the audience in a level where they unknowingly but readily alter
their food memories
◦ Youtube vlogger Beextravegant – shares childhood experiences, personal anecdotes, aspects of
Indian culture as she prepares food – causes nostalgia
Food Vlogs & Mediated Memories
◦ Susan Whitborne, professor of psychological and brain sciences at MIT says:
“Food memories are more sensory than other memories in that they involve really all five senses, so
when you’re that thoroughly engaged with the stimulus it has a more powerful effect.”
◦ Sight – visuals suiting to the nativity of the dishes
◦ Sound – Music eliminated; sounds of chopping, tempering etc.
◦ Smell – spoke of in the narrative
◦ Youtube vlogger Beextravegant – shares childhood experiences, personal anecdotes, aspects of
Indian culture as she prepares food – causes nostalgia
Food Vlogs & Mediated Memories
◦ Forgetting, remembering, addition & deletion of aspects of past memories – natural processes.
◦ Manipulation of understanding however is not.
◦ Some vlogs erase or alter identities without the fullest consent or consciousness of the audience.
◦ E.g.: Chettinad Cuisine – not spicy, non-vegetarian dishes.
◦ Meenakshi Meyyappan who is considered the Grandmother of Chettinad Cuisine says thus:
There's no such thing as Chettinad chicken. In Chettinad cuisine, the closest recipe to what commonly
passes for Chettinad chicken would be what is locally known as the ‘pepper fry'.”
◦ E.g.: Channels like Food N Travel, Eat N Roam, Irfan’s View, Dan Jr Vlogs etc.
◦ This kind of propagation – over time – oblivious to the integrity and cogency food as a significant
aspect of culture has.
As Van Djick says in his concluding chapter of Mediated Memories in the Digital Age:
Memory is no longer what we remember it to be, but then, memory probably never quite
was how we remembered it and may never be what it is now. The present is the only prism we
have to look through to assess memory’s past and future, and it is important we look through
this contemporary prism from all possible angles to appreciate memory’s complexity and beauty.
(182)
Thank you.

Anupama T P, Research Scholar, SRM IST, Chennai

Dr. M Subbulakshmi, Assistant Professor & Research Supervisor, SRM IST, Chennai