Paper short abstract:

Social networking sites and online memorials are incorporated into the remembering of war dead in Vietnam. Online mediums both align themselves with state notions of remembrance, while also affording new opportunities to remember and continue relationships with those not sanctioned by the state.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the impact online memorialisation has on remembering war dead from the American/Vietnam War . With a particular focus on Facebook, it will explore the core themes of remembering and forgetting within the state of Vietnam, examining how the medium of the Internet both allows for remembering which is publically and socially sanctioned, while also being a medium for new forms of remembering not so easily attained offline. This will be addressed through the example of revolutionary martyrs in Vietnam who are recognised and remembered by the state, before turning its attention for those who fought for the opposing regime, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), who are largely erased from the public memory scape. Online however, there are opportunities for memory, and new ways for the dead to speak. Through this, the paper explores the powerful questions of who does or does not have the right to be remembered in society, and the wider issues pertaining to the intersection of the online, continuing relationships and the state in contemporary Vietnam.