REFLECTIONS IN THE FIELD OF INFORMATION SCIENCE ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL MEMORY IN DIGITAL NETWORKS

Abstract

Researchers in the field of Information Science have made efforts to understand the processes of construction of social memory in the context of social networks, resulting in research with multiple perspectives and  differentiated areas, which have great scientific and social relevance. Having said that, the objective was to analyze the frequency of the approach to the concept of social memory in digital networks and the issues related to this theme that are of interest to researchers in this science. This is an exploratory research of a qualitative and quantitative nature, using the content analysis technique as inspiration for the composition of the methodology, and, thus, for the creation of analysis categories so that it was possible to identify variations in terms used for the concepts “patrimony” and “memory”, and also making it possible to understand how these concepts have been debated by Information Science researchers. Studies were found that address different variations of the concepts of memory and patrimony in contemporary times and reflect on the informational phenomena that permeate the construction of social memory in digital media. The availability of information through the sharing of digital collections from libraries, museums, personal, public and institutional archives are constituents of digital heritage and emerge as channels for maintaining social memory and building knowledge. Faced with this, it explains the need to preserve digital heritage and improve content description mechanisms, implement metadata standards in the processes of describing and retrieving information in digital media. It also addresses the survey of ethical issues such as the social responsibility of citizens in the production and sharing of information on the web, much of which still needs to be discussed.   Keywords: memory; social memory; patrimony;  social networks.