Ownership in the Cyber Age: Lost Media and Digital Preservation

For my MA project, I decided to discuss lost media and digital preservation. My passion for this topic comes from my own experience with obscure media that no longer exists. This project will also touch on found media, unidentified media, and hoarded media. I am covering this topic in a surreal documentary type video that incorporates some of this lost media that has later been found.

Our digital tools give us the illusion of preservation by offering different ways to store media such as clouds. However, the lack of physical storage causes these ways to be ineffective since these files and forms of content can get mysteriously deleted. Similarly, content that has already been uploaded to a public platform is at risk of being lost.

These artifacts serve as a portal to the past and help us not only understand the generations before us but also navigate how to shape the future that is ahead of us. Digital preservation of information that has been created by other humans is extremely important and needs to be prioritized.

Additionally, this topic is fascinating when looked through the lens of psychology and memory. Everyone has experienced the feeling of having a vague childhood memory of something that is no longer able to be found, which is why I think this project will be captivating to many who feel the same as I do!

Past MA Projects

Celine Ehrlich’s project about horror hosting feels similar to the topic I am covering in both form and content. While her subject matter started in 1954, it still has the nostalgia element that is present in my topic. I also really enjoyed the way she incorporated elements from the topic she discusses to make her project. Although it was a documentary, it had horror components in it that really elevated the piece. Similarly, I am planning on reflecting the emotions that lost media can bring through stylistic choices in shooting and editing. The ambience will be nostalgic, vintage, and retro!

Works Cited

Ehrlich, Celina. (2024). The Shockwave.

Wieringa, Maranke. (2017). The Fragility of Digital Media Content: On Preservation and Loss: Sketching the Pilgrimage of Future Scholars to Recover Our Digital Vellum.