Komunikatīvo un kultūras atmiņu īstenības apraksti latviešu drukāto mediju žurnālistu otrā līmeņa sabiedrības novērojumos 2022.–2023. gadā

The print or heritage mass media, although losing its position and influence, still plays a vital role in creating basic knowledge, which serves as the basis for topics and schemes of public opinion, similar notions of society, preserved and forgotten in communicative and cultural memory. Descriptions or constructions of communicative, cultural and political memory created by typical representatives, professional journalists Māris Zanders, Agnese Margēviča, Egīls Zirnis, and Pauls Raudseps as second-degree observers have been selected for the study by the newspapers Latvijas Avīze un Diena, weekly magazines Sestdiena and Ir. Based on the distinction between “system” and “environment” in operational constructivism, observation, description and communication of observers of psychic and social autopoiesis systems using mass media and media language and meaning, the methodology and purpose of the study are formulated. The content of journalists’ texts, as constructions of reality produced through the observation of their consciousness, were qualitatively analysed using the hermeneutic method of understanding and explanation based on the theoretical positions of Jan Assmann and Aleida Assmann in explaining communicative, cultural and political memories, active and passive processes of remembering and forgetting. By analysing the publications of journalists of Latvian print media in 2022 and 2023, the direct and indirect participation of journalists as second-level observers and memory agents in creating basic knowledge about the manifestations of communicative and cultural memory and the effect of memory in the initial analysis has been clarified. It has been found that issues of communicative and political/national memory are sometimes discussed on the basis of scientific research insights, while texts devoted to cultural memories mainly refer to specific manifestations of active and passive remembrance and oblivion, sometimes emphasising the presence of occupation and/or colonial and postcolonial heritage in the observations of reality of certain groups in society. Journalists are uncertain about the paths and means by which a more unified cultural memory and political and/or civic national “we identity” can or should be achieved.