Swedish Cold War history on YouTube – committed amateurs and heritagization from below

ABSTRACT

This study explores the meaning-making of amateur videos on YouTube pertaining to the Swedish Cold War heritage and it contributes with a discussion on how videographic conventions and social media platform logics intervene in the ongoing informal heritagization of the Cold War era. The heritagization process of the Cold War remains in Sweden during the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium coincided with the advent of the online society. The process seemed to resonate of the democratic ideals from the discourse of Heritage from below. Now it seemed like anyone had the possibility to become a heritage producer. However, heritagization from below came with unintended implications. The analysis of YouTube videos in this study suggests that the vernacular Cold War heritage is colored by an easily digested format containing of moving still pictures, mood-inducing soundtracks, luring camera perspectives, rhythmic editing, and genre loans from video games and horror films, which tend to safeguard the naturalness of filmed sites and an entire era.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• heritage
• Cold War
• Sweden
• YouTube

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for insightful and inspiring comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In general, the constellation of the Cold War, digital platforms, and Heritage from below appears under-researched, even internationally. However, the overlapping research fields of Urban Exploration (e.g. Mott & Roberts, 2013) and Critical Heritage Studies (e.g. Muzaini & Minca, 2018) offer related studies.

2 https://www.youtube.com/user/MickeSamurai/about Accessed 2021-09-18

3 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72857?hl=en Accessed 2021-05-18

4 Video 1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSFdtvBm9C0 Accessed 2021-09-08

5 Video 2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNhk-vJnZ8 Accessed 2021-10-01

6 Video 3, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzZ8KlN460o Accessed 2021-10-03

7 Video 4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIYAqssdpw Accessed 2021-10-21

8 Video 5, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bwz6zlu3ic Accessed 2021-11-06

9 Video 6, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNWmrZyT1tw Accessed 2021-11-20

10 Video from the island Kolguskär: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfgXE-H7SCk Accessed 2021-10-21

11 The first video on MickeSamurai about Cold War remains, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMHis59oaoU Accessed 2021-10-15

12 Older videos on MickeSamurai without KBE, see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpKjRo1GjNY. Accessed 2021-12-10

13 Ett övergivet skyddsrum och min hjälm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIccyHxMRms Accessed 2021-09-21