Exploring the Grassroots Understanding and Practices of Collective Memory Co-Contribution in a University Community
For HCI researchers and designers of community platforms, this work provides initial insights into member-level collective memory practices, though it is an incremental contribution limited to a single university context.
This study investigates how university community members conceptualize and contribute to collective memory, revealing a core tension between retrospective contemplation and documenting the present for future history. Through a two-week field study with 38 participants using two mobile systems, they identified impacts on narrative focus and expectations, and derived design considerations for community-driven platforms.
Collective memory -- community members' interconnected memories and impressions of the group -- is essential to the community's culture and identity. Its development requires members' continuous participatory contribution and sensemaking. However, existing works mainly adopt a holistic sociological perspective to analyze well-developed collective memory, less focusing on member-level conceptualization of this possession or what the co-contribution practices can be. Therefore, this work alternatively adopts the latter perspective and probes such interpretative and interactional patterns with two mobile systems. With one being a locative narrative and exploration system condensed from existing literature's design frameworks, and the other being a conventional online forum representing current practices, they served as the anchors of observation for our two-week, mixed-methods field study (n=38) on a university campus. A core debate we have identified was to retrospectively contemplate or document the presence as a history for the future. This also subsequently impacted the narrative focuses, expectations of collective memory constituents, and the ways participants seek inspiration from the group. We further extracted design considerations that could better embrace the diverse conceptualizations of collective memory and bond different community members together. Lastly, revisiting and reflecting on our design, we provided extra insights on designing devoted locative narrative experiences for community-driven UGC platforms.