Remembering a disastrous past to imagine catastrophic future(s) on social media: The expected Istanbul earthquake

Abstract

This article explores how collective memory of the 1999 Marmara earthquake frames collective thinking of “the expected Istanbul earthquake” through numerous catastrophic earthquake scenarios posted on the prominent Turkish social media platform called Ekşi Sözlük for nearly two decades. The article first integrates memory, media, and disaster studies to theorize how a looming catastrophe is (re)imagined in retrospect. It then analyzes earthquake scenarios using representative samples to illustrate how the oscillatory dynamics and acts of disaster memory shape the future thinking of a not-yet-come threat within a Turkish social media ecology.