Pandemic and memory: Online memory narratives of COVID-19 survivors in China

Abstract

Abstract This study explored how COVID-19 survivors construct their digital memories of the pandemic by analyzing 110 online memory narratives of COVID-19 survivors on Zhihu, China’s most popular question-and-answer platform. Social media grounded theory was used to identify themes and interpret the results. Four recurring themes emerged from the data: life during treatment, life after treatment, the role of bio/informational technologies, and the motivation for remembrance. The results show how COVID-19 survivors activated the affordances of Zhihu to record the life stories neglected in the state-led memory-making process and transformed them into prospective memories aimed at justice for such survivors. This study contributes to our understanding of how the politics of memory and the politics of platform entangle with each other in the Chinese context.