Media and the past – Mediating the past: Looking back through media in a forward-moving world

The issue Media and the Past: Mediating the Past starts from the premise that the past is not fixed but continuously reinterpreted in relation to the present, and it presents the argument that media play a decisive role in these processes of collective remembering and meaning-making. By shaping how pasts are communicated and contested, media act as key sites where collective memory is negotiated and mobilised. We situate the seven contributions in the issue within contemporary transformations in politics and culture, characterised by a hybrid media environment comprised of legacy media, digital platforms, and GenAI, which raises new questions about power, authority, and visibility in memory discourses. Against this backdrop, we introduce the assembled contributions, highlighting their shared interest in how engagements with the past across different domains are mediated, and outlining their relevance for ongoing debates in society as well as media and communication research.