Media transformation and collective memory in Albania

Year: 2015
Editors: Dr. Jonila Godole, Dr. Sonila Danaj

This book is a product of the First International Conference on Media and Memory "Covering the Communist Past – Media Transformation and Memory in Albania" held in Tirana on 9‒10 November 2015. Both the conference and the edited volume were conceived by the editors with the conviction that journalists and the media play a key role in the collective memory of a country through the way they report on different historical figures and events. Similarly to other communist countries, Albanian media and journalists during the dictatorship were part of the regime's propaganda apparatus. As one of the contributing authors, Peter Gross, puts it, their transformation in the early 1990s to independent and democratic media has not been easy. Twenty five years have passed since the fall of the Stalinist dictatorship in Albania, and it is time we examine the role Albanian media and journalists have played on the societal reflection on the country's past during this period.