Authors
Bethany Mulderig, KR Carriere, Brady Wagoner
Publication date
2024/2/24
Description
Memorials serve a purpose far beyond their physical structure. They preserve and reinforce national and international narratives, and as such play a crucial role in the social psychological divides within political spaces. This paper explores our perceptions of these embodied divides and the role of memorials in the maintenance of political narratives. We conducted text analysis of over 158,000 online memorial reviews to explore sentiment differences between traditional and counter-memorials, and found that these memorials elicited quantitatively different reactions from visitors. We discuss the implications of these findings in the realm of contemporary political understandings and narratives. This research addresses a critical gap in understanding how physical memorials, as representations of past geopolitical events, influence public perception of political narratives in the present and future. By examining the role of memorials in the spatial and social psychological dimensions of politics, we provide novel insights and contributions to the burgeoning field of social psychology in understanding macro-level phenomena.
Total citations