Activation And Reconstruction Of Collective Memory:A Study On “Nostalgia” Culture In Documentary

Since ancient times,“nostalgia” is the most common human cultural emotion and has been forming as an extending collective memory.Along with the rapid development of modern civilization and the acceleration of urbanization process,people are becoming increasingly indifferent to their families and their memories of the village are gradually blurred as well.Moreover,they constantly ignore and dispel the traditional Chinese culture.General Secretary Xi Jinping called on people to “remember nostalgia” in 2013,which is not only the guidance of modernization but also the call to the culture inheritance.As the image recorder of memory,documentary plays an important role in the preservation and dissemination of Collective Memory.The documentary of "Great Migration","Remember Nostalgia ","Family Tradition" and the reality show "Where You From" took homesickness and root seeking as the themes,used the documentary techniques skillfully,paid attention to the aesthetic expression and formed audio and visual shake,which tried to activate the “nostalgia” memory of audience.This article takes the four documentaries above as the research object and chooses Collective Memory as research perspective.The research mainly analyzes how these documentaries activate and construct the “nostalgia” memory of audience.This paper is divided into four chapters:The first chapter reviews the concept of "Nostalgia" at first.Secondly,this chapter analyzes the form and theme of " Nostalgia Culture " appeared in the documentary since the Reform and Opening up.Finally,it analyzes the creation context and the thematic expression of the four documentaries and attempts to take the concept of "nostalgia documentary" to classify them for their unique features.The second chapter focuses on the ways to activate the audience's nostalgic memory via the four documentaries.This paper mainly expounds the three ways of activating the “nostalgia” memory through the selection material of the distinct Times Memory,the narration strategy from different modules and angles,and the combination of the collective memory symbol.Furthermore,this paper argues that the documentaries beckon “nostalgia” memory showing an emotional structure of “nostalgia”.The third chapter mainly analyzes the reconstruction and continuation of “nostalgia” memory.The four documentaries use TV's image symbol,text symbol and sound symbol as a specific way with the current consciousness to reconstruct “nostalgia” memory of people.About continuation of “nostalgia” memory,the documentaries mainly use approaches of "Repetition" and "Interaction".The fourth chapter mainly discusses the identity based on these four documentaries through their activation and reconstruction of “nostalgia” memory.In this paper,the author thinks that the documentaries transmit the idea of “Family & Country” and form the cultural identity,family identity and national identity.