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.