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"Life looked searchingly at America, and in its pages Americans saw themselves ... Many of you can recollect the moment of discovering a special picture-when a teacher pinned Life's pages on a bulletin board; while sharing a copy in an Army barracks; during a quiet time at home. Several of Life's photographs have become a part of the national memory, and we hope that some of your own fondly remembered images appear here. ." (Life, 50th anniversary issue, 5)
"[These] collected notes and observations bear comparison to the snapshots in a family album . . . add[ing] to the sum of what is meant by the American character and turn of mind . . . the distinguishing tone of voice is that of a practical people interested in what they can see and make of the world, the voice of travelers in an always new country, optimistic and energetic, seeking to work the soil of the American experience into a cash crop, a grand hotel, a dream of heaven." (Harper's, 150th anniversary issue, 57)
"As Jimi Hendrix importuned: Please, remember, got to remember, yeah, got to remember, oh Lord . . . let's honor his advice and consider anew the things of our past . . . the heroes and villains, feats and blunders that have defined our world for the last 20 years. ." (Outside, 20th anniversary issue, 45)
Today, mass media are central to Americans' understanding of the past. Marking anniversaries of events-from Pearl Harbor to Woodstock to the debut of the I Love Lucy show-films, massmarket books, and television specials reinterpret their lasting meaning for the country, using these stories to discuss American ideals and identity. Media also celebrate their own longevity, making institutional anniversaries occasions to sum up "history." The ubiquity of retrospective media programs and products confirms that "we are forging through the media a common recollection of the national past" (Nerone and Wartella 85).
Such productions are, of course, works of memory as much as they are works of history, and they are frequently self-reflexive. Fred Davis (1979) notes that not only are the media the primary forum for public reminiscence, "but the very objects of collective nostalgia are in themselves media creations from the recent past. . ....