From Memory Regimes to Discursive Modes: A Theory-driven Framework for Analysing Cultural Memory in Hybrid Public Spheres

This article develops a theory-driven framework for analysing cultural and communicative memory across traditional and digital public spheres. Building on political legitimacy theory, it shifts attention from what memory regimes (e.g., nation-based, human-rights-based, cosmopolitan, transnational) invoke to how memory is discursively enacted in hybrid public spheres. Accordingly, it integrates three analytical layers: (i) narrative inputs of cultural memory, (ii) discursive throughput captured through an antagonism–agonism–deliberation (AAD) analysis of interactional modes, and (iii) outputs evaluated via deliberative functions (epistemic, ethical, democratic), complemented by an additional ideological function. Drawing on Erik Meyer’s conception of commemorations as arenas in which norms, identities, and legitimacy claims are negotiated, the framework captures how actors articulate, contest, and potentially transform remembrance in public debate. Although technical components of our methodological apparatus have been piloted elsewhere, this article offers its first full theoretical articulation. The approach is illustrated across national, cross-border, and transnational commemorative fields, showing how (online) memory talk can amplify conflict, enable agonistic engagement, or open possibilities for more deliberative reflection on the past.