Engraved on Spain's Memory

Engraved on Spain’s Memory

A case study of political discourses present in the media concerning three cemeteries for victims of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship, and their contested contribution to national reconciliation.

Francisco Soto Fernández

Communication for Development One-year master 15 Credits June 2021 Supervisor: Kersti Wissenbach

ABSTRACT

This Degree Project deals with the current discourses present on several (web)sites of memory related to three selected cemeteries for victims of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship and analyzes their potential contribution to national reconciliation, taking into consideration the presumed social or political interests of the actors behind the (web)sites.

Collective memory must be seen as a social construction since memory stems from the shared remembrances of society and relates to key social concepts such as identity. Memory is a changeable device forged through a transformative process in which different actors are involved, from direct witnesses to memory spaces, and recently, the Internet. Memory is also discourse and as discourse is aimed at achieving power by controlling the group. Lately, the Internet has become a battlefield for competing memories, and (web)sites of memory are an opportunity to impose, in the post-truth era, a partial version of historical events.

With the purpose of providing answers about whether current discourses present on (web)sites of memory can help achieve national reconciliation, this DP makes use of Discourse Analysis as a primary method, and also in-depth semi-structured interviews - in a limited number - to attain a better understanding through the uniqueness of the knowledge generated by the respondents.

The Analysis has proven that, despite the time elapsed, the current discourses present on (web)sites of memory are a continuation of the old Francoist and anti-Francoist rhetoric, their contents are designed for audiences deeply committed to sociopolitical interests and, therefore, their contribution to national reconciliation is poor. The analysis has also discovered interesting initiatives aimed at exploiting sites and (web)sites for educational purposes.

Future research may include the repetition of a similar study in the coming years, when the new Law of Democratic Memory has come into force and the political situation in Spain has evolved. It may be also advisable to use contrasting quantitative methods and enlarge the research to other cemeteries, especially, for victims of the Francoist side.

Keywords: memory, identity, lieu de memoire, (web)site, Internet, post-truth.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Kersti Wissenbach, my DP supervisor, for her guidance and useful critiques of this research work, and also, to Tobias Denskus and the rest of the professors of the Communication for Development program, for their advice and support. My thanks are also extended to all the participants in the interviews, without whom this DP could not have been completed. I sincerely appreciate their time and interest.

Secondly, I would like to thank my family who have encouraged and comforted me over the whole C4D program and this final DP and, especially, Coro who is the light of my life, María, Marta, and Miguel, just for being my kin, and finally, my mother who is now losing her memories and lived through post-war penuries without a father, whose name may be found on a (web)site of memory.

Logroño, June 2021

Francisco Soto Fernández.

Table of Contents

PREFACE ...... 1 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 2 2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ...... 6 2.1 The 2014 UN Report ...... 6 2.2 Realms of Oblivion ...... 6 3 THREE CEMETERIES: A CASE STUDY...... 9 4 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 12 4.1 Three waves of memory studies ...... 12 4.2 First wave: Memory as a Social Construction ...... 12 4.3 Second wave: From ‘Lieux de Mémoire’ to Cultural Memory ...... 13 4.4 Third wave: Memory as a Media Construction ...... 14 4.5 Three stages in Spanish Memory ...... 16 5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 18 5.1 Memory as a Journey ...... 18 5.2 Memory as Discourse ...... 19 5.3 The Internet as a Battlefield...... 20 5.4 Memory-making in the ‘Post-truth’ Era ...... 21 6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 23 7 ANALYSIS ...... 29 7.1 General features (RQ1.2) ...... 29 7.2 Multimodality (RQ1.1) (RQ1.2) ...... 30 7.3 Lexis (RQ1.1) ...... 31 7.4 Grammar (RQ1.1) ...... 32 7.5 Truth-claims (RQ1.1)...... 32 7.6 Rhetoric (RQ1.1) ...... 33 7.7 Ideological stances (RQ1.1) ...... 34 7.8 Social networks and algorithm manipulation (RQ1.2) ...... 35 7.9 Overall interpretation of the analysis ...... 36 7.10 A reflection on the analysis ...... 37 8 CONCLUSION ...... 39 APPENDIX 1 Summary of the Analysis ...... 47 APPENDIX 2 Interviews ...... 55 APPENDIX 3 Extracts of the Interviews ...... 59

III

PREFACE

How to stop time? How to reverse the work of forgetting when eighty years from the Spanish Civil War have now elapsed and the last witnesses of the horrors are about to disappear? A site of memory or a ‘lieu de mémoire’, as called by French scholar Pierre Nora, can do the job as the ultimate incarnation of past remembrances. In the digital era, sites and (web)sites of memory are frequent, as binaries of public spaces and virtual devices in which collective memory find their next accommodation. However, not only may these sites and (web)sites preserve memory but also convey a predetermined discourse promoting a partial interpretation of history.

With the purpose of normalizing their status, in 2007, the Spanish parliament passed a law in which sites with relevant significance for the memory of those defeated in the Civil War (Cinta, 2011) were regulated with a commemorative and educational function. In addition, a special distinction was conferred on ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ cemetery, a monumental memorial in which around 40,000 victims of the Civil War were buried, from both the Nationalist and the Republican side, and in which, dictator Francisco Franco himself remained interred until 2019. Palpably, the enforcement of these legislative measures has encountered increasing resistance from some sectors within Spanish society. Maybe, they are nostalgic for Franco’s dictatorship, or simply, another manifestation of the ubiquitous political trend across Europe which, as a consequence of economic crises, vindicates the symbols of our darkest past and is threatening the whole European system of values. Hence, collective memory in Spain is doomed to a long period of contestation due to the absence of societal consensus (Encarnación, 2008). In this regard, Pierre Nora himself, in an interview published by the University of Valencia (Martínez Mas & Nora, 2009), openly declared against the latest Spanish laws concerning collective memory due to their unpredictable consequences breaking the appeasement miraculously reached, without bitterness nor violence, during the ‘transition to democracy’ period. But is Nora right when he affirms that Spain is going through a civil war of memories?

After the arrival of the Internet, the proliferation of digital artifacts, including the aforementioned (web)sites, has brought about a new ecology of media that somehow replicates the Fraserian reinterpretation of the public sphere as an ensemble of discursive arenas in which publics and counter-publics formulate antagonistic understandings of their identities and interests (Fraser, 1990, p.67) and, as a result, has become an ideological battlefield. Certainly, Spain fights the Civil War's last battle which, this time, is taking place on the Net.

1 INTRODUCTION

What is memory about? How do groups remember their past, or in other words, how is their collective memory built? Who decides what is worth remembering or forgetting? In today’s society, different institutions compete in the construction of collective memory whose very character and quality, though, are forged and reforged by a new ecology of digital media (Hoskins, 2011, pp. 279-283), and thus, the past is interpreted through media discourses that become ‘mediated memories’ (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.7).

Take the Spanish Civil War, a bloody conflict fraught with ideological excesses from both sides (Cazorla-Sánchez, 2013, pp 35-36) that, once over, was followed by a totalitarian regime and the political purge of Republican partisans. Many of the cemeteries for the victims of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship will soon become ‘Sites of Democratic Memory’, invaluable spaces that will contribute to honoring those who died on the ‘wrong side’ (Aguilar, 2020). All these sites embody Nora’s concept of ‘lieu de mémoire’ as complex things, from material - and possibly geographically located - to abstract objects that escape oblivion and frequently refer to collective history. In fact, a ‘lieu de mémoire’ - or site of memory - can relate to several emblematic places or cultural expressions of collective memory, from historical sites and monuments to commemorative ceremonies, and also, political movements, traditions (Wydell, 2013, p.82), and more recently, media artifacts. Thus, in the digital era, sites of memory can be both tangible and virtual since many of them are accompanied by their associated (web)sites of memory (Ashuri, 2012) which, as almost a rule, are intended to mediate the significance of the sites themselves. In general terms, not only does their interest reside in how these sites and (web)sites might contribute to constructing the shared memory and, in turn, achieving reconciliation, but also in the people who are behind the (web)sites with the ultimate purpose of conveying a predetermined message.

In this context, the Internet has become an ideal space to create, disseminate and preserve memories and discourses on the Civil War. Actually, there are three primary components of memory in society, (1) “people” as direct witnesses of events, (2) ‘places’ due to their special meaning, and finally, (3) ‘mass media’ (Cook, 2009, p.17) whose recent expansion has facilitated the democratization of memory-making (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.46). Thus, the proliferation of memory sites has brought about a parallel escalation in the number of (web)sites aimed at both preserving and setting collective memory (Röger, 2009, p.190). However, not only is cyberspace an opportunity, but also a threat for remembrances owing to how the images of the past are brought into the present, or in other words, are mediated into the present (Eiroa, 2020). In fact, recollections do not hold still but travel through different social, temporal, or

cultural environments that give rise to an ongoing exchange of information between individuals and media (Erll, 2011) which, in turn, contribute to the reinterpretation of past events. In short, we perceive the past as an intersection of media practices, technologies, forms, and discourses (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.6) in which forces and counter-forces are contending for hegemony in the public sphere (Meyer, 2008, p.176). Obviously, all these sites and (web)sites, along with their discourses and counter-discourses, perform a pivotal function in the construction of common memory which, ideally, should help make opposing interpretations of events capable of existing together, or conversely, start a fight for ideological preponderance and memory ownership when groups with confronting convictions are behind the sites and (web)sites of memory. But is that happening?

The purpose of this Degree Project (DP) will be to identify the different discourses present in the various - and ideologically diverse - coexistent (web)sites of memory concerning three selected cemeteries for victims of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship and also, to analyze their potential contribution to national reconciliation, if any, taking into consideration the presumed social or political interests of the actors responsible for their associated (web)sites. Needless to say, after forty years of excruciating dictatorship, there are countless mass graves and cemeteries related to this period that can be found across the country and whose stories have been circulated through different media devices. For this study, Valdenoceda1 and La Barranca2 have been selected as examples of humbles sites, and El Valle de los Caídos3 as the emblematic cemetery in which the dictator Franco himself was once buried surrounded by thousands of victims.

Evidently, the doubt about the hypothetical role played by (web)sites of memory in achieving reconciliation constitutes a gap in recent literature that, once spotted, deserves to be thoroughly addressed and filled which, in turn, leads to the following Research Question:

RQ1: Can current discourses present on different websites related to three cemeteries for victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship, ‘La Barranca’, ‘Valdenoceda’ y ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, contribute to (national) reconciliation?

1 Located in the province of Burgos, north of Spain, and associated to a Francoist prison where 152 convicts died.

2 Located in La Rioja, in the Ebro Valley, about 400 political victims are buried in this civil cemetery, all of them from the Republican side.

3 Located in Madrid, the Valle de los Caídos is a Catholic basilica and a monumental memorial in which around 40,000 victims of the Civil War are buried, from both the Nationalist and he Republican side. Dictator Francisco Franco’s remains were initially buried in the ‘Valley of the Fallen’ but exhumed and reburied in El Pardo municipal cemetery, alongside his wife in 2019.

Furthermore, the previous question will be ideally informed by asking these additional questions:

RQ1.1: Which are the discourses present on websites which, owned by different actors, are related to the Spanish cemeteries of ‘La Barranca’, ‘Valdenoceda’ and ‘El Valle de los Caídos’?

RQ1.2: Does the selection, framing and target audience of contents on the aforementioned websites relate to specific social or political interests aimed (or not) at achieving national reconciliation?

The selected methodology to guide the research will be the Case Study, an inductive approach (Blatter, 2008) to put the emphasis on predominant discourses present in the media and individual perceptions in so-called ‘crucial cases’ that could be generalized to a certain extent. This approach will facilitate the deployment of specific methods to understand and analyze the case.

Regarding research methods, the study will be carried out through the following ones: a) As a primary method, the study of digital texts present in the media – mainly websites from associations related to the cemeteries – will be carried out through Discourse Analysis which will facilitate a better understanding of how different ways of thinking and expression are framing and ordering reality in certain ways. The purpose of this method will be to identify the existence of discourses, concepts and strategies aimed at acquiring authority about the topic and modeling the collective memory (RQ1.1 and RQ1.2). b) As a secondary method, the use of in-depth semi-structured interviews (in a limited number) will facilitate further exploration of issues through a context-centered lens, taking into account the uniqueness of the knowledge generated by the respondents. The ultimate purpose of this method is to verify whether previous assumptions - about social or political interests behind the different (web)sites related to the three cemeteries, and whether they are aimed at national reconciliation - are correct (RQ1.2).

The first section of this DP presents an overall introduction to the research project, including the purpose, the case study, and the research questions. The second section provides a summary of the historical background and the current problematic whereas the third section describes the case study in more detail. The fourth section offers an overview of the literature concerning the topic. The fifth section presents the toolbox of theoretical ideas and concepts to develop the

study, always through the lens of media, memory and social justice. The sixth section is intended to provide the research methodology. The seventh section contains the empirical analysis of the chosen (web)sites along with relevant responses from interviews, a summary of the findings and evidence of their importance, and a more elaborated discussion with regard to the research questions. The final section provides concluding comments, states the limitations and weaknesses of the study and also, proffers recommendations for future research.

2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 The 2014 UN Report

In 2014, The UN Special Rapporteur on transitional justice Pablo de Greiff visited Spain to evaluate the measures adopted by the Spanish government concerning serious human rights violations, and among them, executions, torture, unlawful detentions, forced labor and exile committed during the Civil War and the subsequent 40 years of dictatorship (de Greiff, 2014). Consequently, a large number of victims, mainly on the Republican side, remain uninvestigated despite the families’ need to give their loved ones a proper burial. The final report4 acknowledges that the consolidation of democracy is one of the major achievements of the Spanish transition whose institutional reforms, including the Armed Forces, proffer some valuable lessons for other countries. However, there are also serious shortcomings, especially in the spheres of justice and truth.

Among the conclusions, the report insists on previous recommendations with respect to the reinterpretation of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ Site which should include research, diffusion, restoration, and maintenance programs aimed at ensuring the dignity and respect for the cemetery as a whole and, particularly, for all the persons interred there. According to De Greiff, “transitional justice mechanisms do not aim at reopening the wounds of the past in a spirit of revanchism, they seek to address and remedy the legacy of the abuses that affected hundreds of thousands of victims, promoting the recognition of their rights, reinforcing trust, especially in the public institutions, and strengthening the Rule of Law” (OHCHR, 2014).

The Special Rapporteur, in view of persistent interpretation differences, appeals to the Spanish institutions and civil society to center their discussions on the pending tasks concerning the notion of rights, which affect everyone, regardless of political considerations. Some of the latest legislative initiatives in Spain are intended to comply with the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations and finally escape the so-called realms of oblivion but, for a better understanding, the next section provides the historical background.

2.2 Realms of Oblivion

In 1931, the Spanish People voted to abolish the monarchy and take a different path under a new political system. From the outset, the life of the young Republic was turbulent, and the

4 Pablo de Greiff presented his final report in the UN General Assembly on 22nd July 2014

future uncertain. The Republican period was a time of constant confrontation between two opposing political ideals which, little by little, were leaning towards extremism. Just five years later, after the electoral triumph of left-wing political parties, a military uprising would unleash the bloody Civil War, the saddest period in Spanish history. And once all finished, the victory of the so-called National Front allowed Francisco Franco, the Caudillo5, to hold the reins of the country and establish a long-lived dictatorship which, at the time, was politically aligned with his fellow co-religionist Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The Civil War was over, and Spain finally entered the twentieth century... However, the worst was yet to come as political repression and revenge led to ideological purge and the persecution of Republicans. Many lives would be ended without compassion in the face of the slightest suspicion or, what is worse, of malicious denouncements which, many times, came from any neighbor or acquaintance eager to settle old scores (Ruiz, 2009). The conflict was over, the horrors were not.

Nevertheless, the dictatorship was brought to an end when the Generalísimo6 passed away. The ‘transition to democracy’ period was guided by ‘an esprit of reconciliation and harmony’ based on a model of impunity embodied by the Amnesty Law of 1977 (López, 2013, p.90) which not only resulted in ’political amnesty’ but also in ‘historical amnesia’. This conciliatory policy was incarnated by the so-called ‘pact of silence’, or the concealment Republican stories of repression in democratic Spain (Leggott, 2013, p.165; Vincent, 2010, p.48) under which, there was no moral reparation for the victims. Thus, Spanish democracy has somewhat been deemed to lack legitimacy as the essence of the system was flawed by Francoist criminals’ impunity and unchallenged privileges (Cazorla-Sánchez, 2013, p.37) while the victims had been deprived of public space to express their grief for another forty additional years (Renshaw, 2011, p.78). But can memory’s voice be silenced or even muffled? Time has proven otherwise even if, sometimes, society kind of accepts not remembering and embraces what can be called ‘realms of oblivion’, a voluntary state of things under which the group decides to forget past traumatic events (Allen, 2007). Thus, with the purpose of putting an end to this state of things, in 2007, the Socialist Party passed a law that promotes measures aimed at compensating persecution during the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship. More recently, the Spanish Cabinet has approved a new draft bill that includes additional measures targeting the legacy of Franco’s regime (Cué, 2020) which will contemplate, following the Special Rapporteur’s recommendation, the creation of the so-called “Sites of Democratic Memory” and, among them,

5 General Francisco Franco took this tittle, which could be translated as ‘military leader’, in parallel to the German and Italian equivalents of the same period: ‘Führer’ and ‘Duce’.

6 General Francisco Franco was called ‘the Generalísimo’, a military rank of the highest degree.

‘El Valle de los Caídos’ cemetery will be endowed with a different significance. But will the Spanish People be able to comply with the Special Rapporteur’s final statement?

The answer might be moot. On the one side, Spanish society has attained a level of maturity that should allow its citizens to confront the forgotten horrors and initiate a constructive dialogue in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. But on the other, the new governmental approach seems to be perceived as an act of vengeance by a non-depreciable fraction of the population who fears losing this last skirmish despite having won the war… A fight for the memory whose weapons, ironically, are mediatized soldiers already dead.

3 THREE CEMETERIES: A CASE STUDY

After forty years of excruciating dictatorship, there are countless mass graves and cemeteries related to the Civil War and Francoist repression that can be found across the country whose stories have been circulated through different media devices. Some of them are small and discreet, other ones huge and monumental, none conveys a neutral message, and their common divisor has to do with the horror contained on the sites. There are Republican sites, Francoist cemeteries, or a third category that houses victims from both sides…, all with their associated (web)sites of memory and, frequently, antagonistic versions of the same story. For this DP, the following three cemeteries have been selected in order to proffer a representative sample of sites concerning the Francoist period:

- La Barranca is a small cemetery located in Lardero, in the autonomous community of La Rioja, close to the regional capital, Logroño. The location was selected by the Francoist government to carry out a series of murders, and the subsequent burials, owing to the lack of space in the cemetery of Logroño. The Site became a mass grave that hosted more than 400 dissident corpses, murdered in the place itself. Thanks to the perseverance of the widows and relatives, the memory was kept alive. In 1979, after Franco's death, this place - neglected by the Francoist authorities - was dignified with the construction of La Barranca Civil Cemetery.

La Barranca Civil Cemetery (source: photo taken on April 10th, 2021)

The monolith that presides at the entrance has become the symbol of the repression in La Rioja. Lately, the regional parliament, unanimously, has approved a non-binding proposal

to declare La Barranca a site of cultural interest. The Site is managed by La Barranca Association, a non-lucrative organization aimed at the preservation of historical memory in La Rioja concerning the Francoist period. Its (web)site, also called ‘La Barranca’, was established with the purpose of keeping alive and divulging the names and memory of all the victims of the Francoist dictatorship in La Rioja and will constitute the text under study regarding this ‘lieu de mémoire’.

- The Valdenoceda penal institution was a Spanish prison located in the constituency of Valdivielso, in the northern province of Burgos. The building, formerly a factory, was used as a prison between 1938 and 1943, a period covering the end of the Civil War and the first years of the Francoist regime. There are reported to be up to 152 prisoners who died owing to poor sanitary conditions and were interred there, most of them from the southern Spanish provinces. Their families began to meet in the 80s and 90s and, later on, constituted a Family Association with the aim of exhuming and identifying the victims, having positively recognized 68 individual human remains to date. The Association also runs a (web)site of memory, ‘Exhumación de Valdenoceda’, that works as a meeting point and, in addition, as a memory bank in which written and oral testimonies are collected. The contents of this (web)site will be also analyzed in this DP.

Exhumation and former prison (source: exhumacionvaldenoceda.com)

- El Valle de los Caídos is a monumental memorial and Catholic basilica in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, province of Madrid (Vincent, 2010, p.56). The emblematic architectonic ensemble was erected with the goal, in the words of Francisco Franco, of meaning a national act of atonement and reconciliation. The basilica is run by a Benedictine community and served as the interment place of Franco himself until his exhumation in 2019, surrounded by the remains of more than 40,000 victims, from both the Republican and the Nationalist sides. The Site is located in the vicinity of El Escorial Monastery, which contains the sepulchres of the Hasbsburg and Bourbon royal dynasties,

in an attempt to parallel the grandiosity of Spanish monarchy and to defy time and oblivion, taking advantage of the ubiquitous symbology exalting the myth of the Francoist ideological crusade (Bueno, 2013). The dictator’s exhumation was consummated after an interminable legal process that led to a wave of political confrontation reflected in the various (web)sites related to ‘El Valle’, and among them, this DP will study the following ones:

- The Abbey’s official page, ‘Valle de los Caídos’, was created to promote the Site, organize educational activities and raise funds in order to preserve the monument.

- The webpage of the Association for the Defense of the Valle de los Caídos (ADVC), an organization whose main purposes are the defense, promotion, and dissemination of the guiding principles behind the construction of the Site.

- The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH), an overarching organization initially aimed at investigating anonymous graves of the dictatorship victims that is very active in the demand for the religious order eviction and the reinterpretation of the Site, and provides thematic contents - concerning the cemetery - on its webpage.

- The Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF), association constituted to divulge and foster the study and knowledge about the life, thought, work, and legacy of Francisco Franco which is doomed to disappear if the new Democratic Memory Act is passed. The Foundation’s webpage was also very belligerent in its opposition to Franco’s exhumation and their defense of ‘El Valle’.

‘The Valley of the Fallen’ Site (source: www.yumping.com)

4 LITERATURE REVIEW

4.1 Three waves of memory studies

The borders between memory and history have been always blurred since history succeeds memory when no one else is capable of remembering and, as Winston Churchill once proclaimed, “History is written by the victors”. Actually, memory is not history but another way of coming to terms with the past (Holtorf, 2015).

According to Maurice Halbwachs, collective memory is different from history in two main aspects: (1) memory, unlike history, is linked to what is alive or sensed as still alive by the group and cannot be divided into periods, consequently, memory can be regarded as a natural and continuous device circumscribed to the consciousness of a group, thus, when an event ceases to interest a group, there is no longer a group but two groups that follow one another, and (2) there are several collective memories as opposed to history which, sensu stricto, should have a single objective and impartial version (Halbwachs, 1950, pp. 44-46; Zawadzki, 2004). Memory is something we live with (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.14) and is permanently evolving through forgetting (A. Assman, 2008, p.97), deformations, and manipulation in contrast with history that is a reconstruction incomplete of the past (Nora, 1989). In short, history makes sense when collective memory is about to disappear. Hence, memory studies have become a discipline ‘per se’, related but differentiated from history, which has gone through three different waves (Erll, 2011, pp. 4-5; Martin, 2019). A previous one, personified by Halbwachs, Benjamin, and Warburg, in which memory is ‘framed‘ by social structures, a second wave, represented by Nora and both Assman (Jan and Aleida), in which memory is “bound” to the so- called sites of memory and the third current trend, embodied by authors such as Reading, Hoskins, or Erll in which diverse theories insist on the mutability of memory (Martin, 2019).

4.2 First wave: Memory as a Social Construction

The concept of collective memory was coined by Halbwachs to explain how social processes (1) may affect personal remembrances gathered over an individual’s lifetime and also, (2) may influence a social group’s shared memories of the past which, in turn, contribute to constructing the group’s identity (Holtorf, 2015) by bringing back recollections that are needed by society itself to exist as a society (Zawadzki, 2004). In fact, since individual witnesses are part of a group with some shared mindset and frequent contact, they will be capable of self-identifying with the group and confounding their own past with the group’s common remembrances. Individual memories are different from the group’s, though, since affective and intellectual

specificities predispose how events are imprinted on each particular mind which, besides, may well belong to several intertwined groups with contradicting perceptions of the same fact (Halbwachs, 1950, pp. 21-22). Therefore, collective memory envelops individual memories but differs from them, evolves according to its own laws, and can be modified or even replaced by certain individual memories which, henceforth, become collective (Halbwachs, 1950, p.26). Yet, between the individual and the nation, there are several smaller groups that coexist in a shared space and, thus, there are as many collective memories as social institutions. Paradoxically, the smaller the group, the stronger the perception of common remembrance (Halbwachs, 1950, p.44). With regard to group differentiation, as long as collective memories are not the same, groups preserve their own identity but when there is a common perception of past events, a new group is born with a foreseeable common understanding for future events (Halbwachs, 1950, p.71). However, some rare events, on a national scale, may modify all existences simultaneously and constitute some benchmarks over time (Halbwachs & Lasén Díaz, 1995) which, consequently, might help construct national identity. Undoubtedly, the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship should be regarded as clear examples of identity-making traumatic events.

4.3 Second wave: From ‘Lieux de Mémoire’ to Cultural Memory

Collective memory, or more precisely, communicative memory, as renamed by Jan Assman (2008, p.111), is supposed to have the same longevity as the oldest members of the group who witnessed an event, in short, eighty years that equals three interacting generations. Thus, once the last spectators disappear, memory and, as a result, identity are constantly transformed and even the group itself changes over time (Halbwachs, 1950, p.48). However, Halbwachs (1950, p.95) also acknowledges that as long as assets remain, memory is not completely at fault, which somehow introduces Nora’s concept of ‘lieux de mémoire’ - or sites of memory - defined as significant material or intangible entities which, by means of human choice or work of time, have become a representative sign of a community’s memorial heritage. As stated by Nora, all sites of memory are voluntarily fabricated to prevent the work of time on memory, to avoid forgetfulness (Holtorf, 2015; Nora, 1989), and, many times, with the ultimate purpose of constructing national identity (Den Boer, 2008, p.21). Memory crystallizes on these sites at a particular turning point in history because there are no longer other environments of memory, and when memory is about to vanish, someone must take the responsibility to store memory somewhere else (Nora, 1989). But sites of memory can also have been established by groups that can disperse or cease to exist which implies a loss in the sites’ initial meaning, even when they could be appropriated by new groups and be conferred a new significance (Holtorf, 2015). In addition, sites of memory may well be regarded as points of reference not only for the very

witnesses of traumatic events but also for the next generations, which is called second-order memory (Winter, 2008, p.62). All in all, ‘lieux de mémoire’ are capable of accumulating, in the words of Nora, “a maximum amount of meaning in a minimum number of signs” through a process of convergence that, somewhat, attracts meaning towards the site (Erll, 2009, p.110).

There is hereby a growing conviction about long-lasting memory being closely related to culture which, according to Aleida Assman (2008, p.97), could be described as the memory of a society “that transcends the individual life span relating past, present, and future”. Furthermore, Jan Assman has defined cultural memory, in contrast to communicative memory, as cultural manifestations of collective memory, and among them, symbols, memorials, monuments (J. Assman, 2008, p.111; Holtorf, 2015) along with traditions may help convey people a cultural identity (J. Assman, 2008, p.110). Needless to say, sites of memory must be seen as just a sub- category of cultural memory which, on purpose, are intended to perpetuate the collective memory of a group which is achieved not only through the conception and ‘content’ of a site, but also through its grandiosity and the quality of the construction (Holtorf, 2015).

In addition, cultural forgetting is the counterpart of cultural memory, as the latter is transformed by the former, either actively or passively depending on the intention of losing, neglecting, or leaving behind material and non-material cultural artifacts (A. Assman, 2008, p.98). Consequently, the cultural remains of memory will ensure the transmission of collective knowledge to later generations and enable them to reinforce identity and maintain their cultural traditions (Holtorf, 2015).

4.4 Third wave: Memory as a Media Construction

Throughout these theories, there is the implicit idea of memory as a chameleonic institution that changes and evolves even when it seems to be immutable. Thus, more than a monolithic entity, memory should be viewed as a ‘battlefield’ where everything is under permanent discussion (Fortunati & Lamberti, 2008, p.129; Olick, 2008, p.152). Accordingly, the legacy may be re- interpreted or even discarded by later generations (Reulecke, 2008, p.122; Samuel, 2012, p.6) due to the necessity to come to terms with the past which, on many occasions, is achieved through the prism of guilt or responsibility (Meyer, 2008, p.173). From a different perspective, memory has become a traveling device that is affected by globalization which, once more, keeps collective recollections in constant movement under the influence of diverse transcultural perceptions of preterit events (Erll, 2011). And last but not least, the changeable nature of memory must be understood taking into consideration that the remembrances of our today’s society are constituted and governed by mass media (Esposito, 2008, p.181), and more recently

by the Internet whose changing systems are capable of transforming reality - or what is remembered as former reality – into traditional and online media facts conditioned by their own logics, and subsequently distributed as presumed representations of the past (Schmidt, 2008, p.198).

In this regard, Andrew Hoskins (2009, pp.92-95) has stated that the use of different technologies and network platforms has brought about a new emergent digital ‘network memory’ that is dynamically configured by both digital media with their sponsored memory discourses, and social networks that exert influence following their own dynamics. Under this new ecology of digital communication, the multiplication of mediated memories has given rise to a new ecology of memory in which (1) ‘connectivity’ has become one of the key dynamics inasmuch as allows memory to be rapidly transformed through accelerated remediation via digital media and, (2) the increasing accessibility to memory resources, consequence of the Internet, may have a pervasive effect on collective memory due to what could be called ‘memory saturation’. Hence, both referred ecologies will co-evolve as digital media determine not only what is remembered or forgotten, but also the acceptance and quality of memory (Hoskins, 2011). In other words, digital media have grown to be co-constitutive for the articulation of major social sciences, including memory studies (Hepp et al., 2015). Regarding mediatization, the relationship between memory and media is twofold, in the first place, memory, like other fields or systems, needs to adapt itself to the media set of rules and formats known as ‘media logics’ and secondly, the way how memory is presented by media, with its specific features, has a consequence in the construction of memory (Couldry & Hepp, 2013). As a result, the omnipresent Internet, with its countless memory resources and their associated discourses, may cause frictions between what might be seen as ‘living’ or ‘developing’ memory and the hegemonic ‘dormant’ narrative of history. In fact, particular stories can gain authority through predetermined media practices, and among them, sharing, including, excluding, or giving prominence (Høg Hansen et al., 2015, pp. 4-5) and even constitute a sound alternative to official history (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.3) which somehow bolsters the sense of identity. To put simply, the recent advent of connected media and almighty social networks have resulted in new mingled ecologies of media and memory within which not only are media able to rearrange, fabricate and discard memory but also, in accordance with Halbwachs’ theories, to reinforce or create groups while transmitting collective memories (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.38). But having said that, the interplay between media and memory has also the power to store and keep memory alive via Internet artifacts that are part of the ‘digital sphere’ (Garde-Hansen, 2011, pp. 52-53), and among them, the so-called (web)sites of memory (Ashuri, 2012) which, as double-edged swords, are capable of both preserving and reforging memory. Needless to say, the ‘three cemeteries’ case study falls into this panorama of

digital media capable of storing the collective memory but also challenging firmly established interpretations of past events and, ultimately, forging the group's identity and the group itself.

4.5 Three stages in Spanish Memory

The aforementioned theories help comprehend how memory is constructed, preserved, and reforged through institutions whose role is decisive in the successive stages of memory-making. Accordingly, the construction of Spanish memory should be understood taking into consideration that Spanish society has also gone through several stages in a journey of struggles to keep the memory alive.

- First stage: Bearers of the Memory. Over about forty years, denial of the Civil War and Francoist dictatorship crimes was the only authorized version of the events somehow perpetuated by the subsequent ‘pact of oblivion’, a clear example of ‘cultural amnesia’, the alternance of remembrance and oblivion that some societies undergo when having to face traumatic aspects of their past (Fortunati & Lamberti, 2008). Nevertheless, the policies of forgetting can be frustrated when there were people who kept on remembering despite the omnipresent official discourse, inasmuch as the memory may persist entrenched in the private recollections of the regime dissidents (Cazorla-Sánchez, 2013, p.21), especially the so-called ‘bearers of memory’, the mourning ‘women in black’ who survived the war (Renshaw, 2011, p.118). Therefore, what was thought forgotten was not, but just put aside until an opportunity to sustain its resurgence (Leggott, 2013, p.166).

- Second Stage: Post-memory. After traumatic events, stories are often transmitted to the next generation so deeply as to constitute vivid memories (Renshaw, 2011, p.118), or in other words, what Marianne Hirsch has called post-memory (Morcillo, 2013, p.2). However, the peril of forgetting is always there and increases when the last living witnesses start dying (Wydell, 2013, p.77), and households are no longer able to play their role as primordial ‘reminders of the memory’ (Winter, 2008, p.72). In the Spanish case, in addition to the loss of the grandmothers, the grandchildren’s generation has recently needed to deal with economic hardship and, as a result, past horrors have started losing the audience’s attention (Cazorla-Sánchez, 2013, p.21).

- Third Stage: Lieux de mémoire. Thus, there is an urgent need for new ‘memory carriers’ such as human remains – and cemeteries – which, apparently, are more persistent than the victims’ memories that can be refuted, altered, and even suppressed. Consequently, exhumations of Francoist victims and cemeteries might serve as a basis for narrative

construction (Renshaw, 2011, p.15) and, besides, are more attractive to the wider public than oral testimonies (Renshaw, 2011, p.84). Yet, these sites of memory, in the Internet era, are no longer alone but accompanied by their digital counterparts, the so-called (web)sites of memory, as virtual examples of Nora’s mechanisms to reinvigorate the audience connection to memory.

All in all, it can be argued that the Spanish memory journey comprises three stages represented in the figure below, from the actual events directly experienced by first-hand female witnesses or ‘bearers of memory’, to post-memory in second-generation households, and finally, cemeteries and other sites of memory along with their (web)sites.

•Exhumations •Witnesses •Second and generation Lieux de cemeteries Crimes Households •Bearers of the mémoire memory •Post-memory •(Web)sites of memory

Figure 1 Spanish memory flowchart

5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical framework draws on the broad field of social studies, and more precisely on the interplay of memory and communication sub-fields. In addition, the research design builds on relevant literature, including collective memory, discursive practice, digital sphere, and post- truth whose terminology and key concepts are used throughout this DP.

Therefore, this chapter covers a series of theoretical arguments intended (1) to provide the conceptual framework for the ideological contest happening within `the digital public sphere´, a communicative sphere provided by online media – from websites to social networks – where matters of common interest can be freely and openly discussed and, ideally, transparency should be the norm (Schäfer, 2016), (2) to cast some light on how, in the post-truth era, an era wherein objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs (de Saint-Laurent et al., 2017), the construction of social entities, such as memory, is driven by a competition between emotive truths circulating on the Net and competing for opposed interpretations of the same reality, and (3) to explain how the group identity, understood as the group’s collective memory, relies on media institutions aimed at its preservation and reinforcement, but between which, forces and counterforces struggle to occupy a hegemonic position.

5.1 Memory as a Journey

As previously discussed, there is a broad consensus on considering the construction of collective memory as a continuous and evolving process consequence of meaning-making reinterpretation of the past (Espinoza et al., 2014). As an example, Nora asserted that, in the case of French society, this process has experienced three principal stages and the third one starts when real memory has been lost and ‘lieux de mémoire’ emerge to replace and store the now absent real memory (Wydell, 2013, p.84). In this respect, the site-of-memory concept may be understood in a broader sense, since the term encompasses any significant entity which, regardless of its nature, has become a symbolic landmark of the collective memory. Among them, (web)sites of memory have appeared as digital ‘equivalents’ whose effects are two-fold, on the one side, helping to avoid the work of forgetting but, on the other, as means for memory dissolution and distortion that occur when remembrances are evicted from more stable institutions (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.22) and are exposed to the pervasive power of the Internet. From a different perspective, Clara Wydell (2013, pp. 85-87) further elaborates Nora’s argument and maintains that a fourth stage - the stage of ‘performative memory’ - is expected to bridge the gap between audience and memory, in other words, to stir emotions beyond the

storing capacity of ‘lieux de mémoire’. At this stage, memory would be told to develop a narrative and allow the audience to form their version of the truth (Jackson, 2002, p.267), in compliance with the Samuelian interpretation of ‘living history’, through which, performance brings back memory to life. But without discarding this theory, it is more acceptable that, as argued by Joanne Garde-Hansen (2011, p.55), the last stage of the memory journey is constructed through discourses present in the media, capable of conveying new narratives and ultimately reforging memory. Concerning this, (web)sites of memory constitute a more ephemeral but also more pliable alternative that functions as 'à la carte' artifacts targeting predetermined groups and disseminating ideological discourses in specific public spheres. From an academic perspective, the interest of analyzing the role played by these (web)sites - as memory-makers - resides in understanding which discourses, which audiences, and which reasons are associated with each (web)site.

5.2 Memory as Discourse

Memory actions involve the creation of discourses about the past which, as affirmed by Félix Vázquez, not only entail specific interpretations of the past but also the participation in the production - through discursive practice - of collective memory, the social construction of the past that is decided in the present (Espinoza et al., 2014). This idea builds on the constructionist approach to meaning, according to which meaning emanates from language or whatever system representing our thoughts and is constructed through different signifiers (signs or symbols) to which one or several signifieds are associated hinging on divergent linguistic, cultural, or ideological codes (Hall, 2013, pp.11-16). As salient examples, shared or disputed ‘lieux de mémoire’ might be viewed as discernible signifiers to which opposing signifieds are frequently ascribed depending on each group’s interpretation of their meaning (Erll, 2009, p.109). Besides, in de opinion of Roland Barthes (1957, p.113), there is a second order of signifiers when well- established binaries of signifiers and signifieds become a myth whose conjoint signified is widely accepted through implicit connotation. This was the initial purpose of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, to mythologize a military coup as a crusade against ‘anti-Spanish’ ideological streams (Bueno, 2013, p.51; Delso et al., 2018). Furthermore, the concept of discourse, defined as a group of statements intended to influence and regulate the behavior of others (Foucault, 1984, pp. 53-72), will encompass diverse practices aimed at constructing meaning by using common terms, styles, strategies, or dialectical patterns capable of dispossessing any idea of their meaning when placed outside discourse. Therefore, discourses shape our view of the world through symbols and affects, or in other words, by feeling the symbols that help establish collective identity (Mateus, 2018, p.71). Foucault claimed that discourse is influenced by the historical context, but the opposite logic also holds since memory can be constructed by

discourse, or in the words of Steven Anderson, memory is “best understood as a site of discursive struggle” (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.55) which leads to the idea of memory as a form of discourse (Espinoza et al., 2014; Martin, 2019). What is more, memory, like any facet of knowledge, can be used to achieve authority over the group (Rose, 2016, p.190) and even model its identity which, ultimately, would result in power (Hall, 2013, pp. 29-33) and, consequently, would give rise to a war between competing memories.

However, mediated memories go beyond the previously defined concept of discourse since media mediate and, by doing so, new non-textual contents – images, sounds, or computer effects – are incorporated into the mediated memory which, from this time on, will be understood as a combination of discourses, forms, technologies, and practices (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.38). Hence, the scrutiny of memory discourses may identify linguistic practices that promote predetermined meaning, explicit or implicit, through patterns of language and dialectical strategies which denote ideological stances aimed at exerting control over the group, and also, to analyze whether other additional elements, which are present on media texts, have been purposely included and what the foreseeable outcomes of their circulation are.

5.3 The Internet as a Battlefield

In light of these lines of reasoning, it might be argued that the Internet has become a prominent actor in the construction of collective memory. In fact, the Internet is playing a crucial role as a battlefield for discourses and counter-discourses, in which, not only are (web)sites of memory capable of preserving testimonies of the truth but also of challenging the hegemonic version of the truth. In this context, and despite the need for an armistice and memory reconciliation in many societies, (web)sites of memory should be regarded as just another weapon to draw.

Among the various definitions of communication, that of social communication can be of use due to the social character of collective memory postulated by Halbwachs (1950, p.26). Thus, according to Francis Nyamnjoh (2016, p.26), communication can be defined, from a social point of view, as a negotiation process through which collective meaning is produced, and then, transmitted and received by the social agents, ideally, in a democratic way. Following this idea, the Internet was viewed, for a time, as a driver of social and democratic participation thanks to the development of easy-to-use software tools and some electronic breakthroughs, such as widespread broadband and mobile phones, which have allowed users to create, divulge, and access to digital contents easily (Vickery & Wunsch-Vincent, 2007, p.15). Actually, this ecology of accessible digital resources was claimed to embody a modern version of `the public sphere´, the Habermassian arena for rational deliberation and public debate (Fraser, 1990; Tufte,

2017, p.56) to discuss matters of common interest. Therefore, the preponderance of well- established discourses and top-down channels of communication could be challenged by internet-based artifacts that enable people to make their voices heard without ‘gate-keepers’ able to hinder access to traditional media and prevent citizens from engaging in public debate (Schäfer, 2016). However, the very essence of the Internet also involves the interplay of three different layers in this kind of ecologies, (1) technological, which comprises devices and media, (2) social, which includes citizens and social institutions, and (3) discursive, which refers to the media contents (Treré & Mattoni, 2016), and which, altogether, contribute to reframing discourses. Paradoxically, this presumed democratic process, facilitated by the Internet, can be affected by the Internet itself and, consequently, the message can also be twisted in its turn. From a different angle, discourses present in the media encapsulate three core elements: the media contents, the process involved in producing these contents, and finally the alignment with the audience (Cotter, 2015, p.801). Needless to say, the changeable relationship between the signifier, the media contents, and the signified, which depends on the specific circumstances of the recipient public (Rose, 2016, p.32), represents an invaluable opportunity for gaining ascendancy through different discourses embedded in these Internet artifacts. All in all, the research methodology of this DP must be designed bearing in mind that (1) the Internet may offer a chance for the democratization of discourses even though (2) discourses can be altered through the mediatization inherent to the Net which, once again, conducts to the metaphor of the Internet as a battlefield.

5.4 Memory-making in the ‘Post-truth’ Era

Nonetheless, this theory about how the proliferation of memory devices in the media (Huyssen, 2013), including the Internet, would help materialize an open space for discussion and the democratization of memory-making (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.46), has recently become the subject of strong criticism. In the post-truth era, discourses based on appeals to emotion are taking precedence over objective facts in the construction of public opinion and, consequently, collective memory, so frequently associated with traumatic events, has served as a political tool to impose a particular vision of the future (de Saint-Laurent et al., 2017). As opposed to general assumptions, post-truth is more than rejecting truth and accepting fakes, and grows on the blurred boundaries between both (Kalpokas, 2019, p.2) making the most of big data analytics that facilitate key emotional features to penetrate the target audience and track, in real time, the outcomes of their truth-claims (de Saint-Laurent et al., 2017; Kalpokas, 2019). Actually, post- truth has been related to (1) preponderance of affective motivation over rational decisions, (2) systematic spread of inaccurate and distorted information on purpose, and (3) information manipulation to turn fakes into dominant beliefs (Abraham, 2018) since audiences no longer

accept the truth when differing from deeply rooted convictions and feelings (Harsin, 2018a). Returning to memory, the progressive implementation of social networks and participative websites - intelligent web services that allow users to collaborate in developing, rating, and disseminating Internet content (Vickery & Wunsch-Vincent, 2007, p.9) - has fueled the rapid spread of information, either factual or fake, and has also contributed to the appearance of ideologized initiatives of memory-making which, frequently, are articulated through affective discourses (López, 2013, p.93). Yet, the creation of emotive memories raises second thoughts about ownership of the past and the right to exploit such memories (Cazorla-Sánchez, 2013, p.46) which has given rise to an ongoing fight between memories and counter-memories, fakes and counter-fakes, which further entangles the difficult relationship between the urge to remember and the drive to forget (Fortunati & Lamberti, 2008). All in all, the emotional dimension of memory has become a powerful catalyst for radical discourse through which populists may polarize the public opinion taking advantage of Internet algorithms and profit- seeking platforms, instead of transforming pockets of historical rancor into an open space for democratic debate (Hensmans, 2021).

In conclusion, the research methodology must be designed to identify discourses - in the broad sense of the term - present on the selected (web)sites, and within them, emotional and affective rhetoric, ideological approaches, truth-claims, fake or twisted information, algorithmic manipulation, effects of mediation, and, if possible, references to national reconciliation. The conceptual framework that depicts the process of memory-making can be found in the figure below.

Witnesses Events Signifier

Site of memory

Discourse 1 Discourse 2 Discourse 3

(Web)site of memory 1 (Web)site of memory 2 (Web)site of memory 3

Collective memory Internet battlefield

Figure 2 Conceptual Framework

6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The ‘Three Cemeteries’ case study comprises several selected (web)sites concerning Spanish cemeteries for the victims of the Francoist period as digital ‘lieux de mémoire’ whose contents, ideological stances, and strategies are examined in this DP. The research methodology draws on Discourse Analysis, an approach that facilitates the study of both media texts and political discourses present in the (web)sites of memory, with the purpose of answering the research questions. Discourse Analysis challenges "the taken-for-granted nature of language” (Sitz, 2008) but on which, there is no broad consensus in the literature and should rather be regarded as a constellation of methods for dissecting how language is used and what its role in social life is (Potter, 2008). Hence, there are several possible definitions of Discourse Analysis but, they all fit into one of the following three categories: (1) anything beyond the sentence, (2) language usage, and (3) a wider range of social practices that include not only written and spoken language but also non-linguistic and non-specific instances of language (Schiffrin et al., 2015, p.1). However, what makes discourse valuable to the research is not so much what is analyzed (grammar, rhetoric, narrative, or sociolinguistics, among others) but its relationship with power over the group and the group’s identity which, according to Teun A. van Dijk (2015, pp. 468- 475), crystallizes in three kinds of control: (1) control of text and context of discourse, (2) mind control and (3) discourse of domination. This DP will focus on mind control since, despite the end of domination discourses in democratic Spain and the alleged availability for open discussion through Internet artifacts, emotional discourses and truth-claims have invaded the digital sphere attempting to exert mental control over the audience. Presumably, the aim of the actors behind the (web)sites could be to influence and even manipulate common knowledge, social attitudes, and ideologies within a specific group, or the whole society, seeking to construct collective identity through specific discourse (de Finna & Johnstone, 2015, p.161). In connection with this, contents and discourses embedded in (web)sites of memory are able to do ideological work (Van Dijk, 2015, p.467) and, through post-truth narratives, to persuade Internet users to embrace a particular version of memory and the self which, from then on, will always seem plausible (Kalpokas, 2019, p.7). Obviously, the analysis of the (web)sites’ contents will facilitate the discovery of blatant, subtle, or hidden intentions, in terms of memory construction, and further, the drive for memory and identity appropriation, or in contrast, the acceptance of divergent interpretations of traumatic events capable of coexisting together and contributing to national reconciliation.

Regarding the approach, this DP has intended to be anything but critical, or to put it bluntly, to avoid following Critical Discourse Analysis which, in the words of Van Dijk (2015, p.466), may be defined as a “discourse study with an attitude”. The purpose has been to adopt an

equidistant position that should allow a better sight of the big picture bearing in mind that memory is a changeable device and, therefore, nobody has a monopoly of the truth. But as opposed to other areas of knowledge, social studies are rarely conducted with indisputable impartiality since the researcher also takes part in social interaction and, many times, interferes in the phenomenon under scrutiny. Hence, personal biases need to be carefully eluded even when, as any Spanish-born citizen, family memories are still entrenched in vivid recollections that, from time to time, come back to mind.

As aforementioned, Discourse Analysis encompasses a diversity of approaches that provides a vast variety of methods of which the researcher can take advantage, neither independent nor mutually exclusive. Furthermore, as stated by Norman Fairclough (2003, p.1) there is also widespread unsureness about how to carry out an analysis of language and discourse which opens the door to different perspectives and strategies. Thus, in this DP, several analytical methods have been put into practice in sequential order, most of them described by Tannen, Hamilton, and Schiffrin (2015), taking into account the following aspects:

- General features of the language employed in the text, including the presence of anachronic vocabulary, the position of the writer with respect to the audience, the writing style, the register…, in short, different characteristics that might denote ideological patterns and give a clue about the ultimate goal behind the (web)sites’ contents. The identification of such common patterns hints at firmly established religious beliefs (Lempert, 2015, p.903) or national-building projects in which language is recruited as a means for political objectives (Philips, 2015, p.563) (RQ1.2).

- Multimodality is rather a phenomenon than an analytical method that affects discourse. In the opinion of Theo van Leeuwen (2015, p.447), discourse is almost always multimodal (verbal, written, visual) and multimodality must be considered when studying discourses because meanings can be conveyed by any semiotic mode. However, there are differences due to how the visual expresses meaning spatially in an instantaneous fashion without following a linear development. The analysis will emphasize not only the presence of ideological symbols and images of trauma and emotions able to give a specific meaning but also the existence of clusters of words and images aimed at constructing discourse (Rose, 2016, p.206) (RQ1.1) and (RQ1.2).

- Lexis, whose overall selection reflects political alignments and may be used to encode specific “stances” defined as something we do through communication to align ourselves with an ideology, an object, or others (Wilson, 2015, p.786) and can be exacerbated by the

usage of pejorative vocabulary items. Moreover, the presence of emotional terms aimed at claiming truth despite dubious authenticity, what has been called emo-truth (Harsin, 2018a, 2018b), may also indicate indoctrinatory purposes. Thus, the perusal of the (web)sites’ contents has attempted to distinguish lexical forms and structures associated with ideological streams (RQ1.1).

- Grammar, owing to the assumption that grammar choices are related to ideological purposes (Wilson, 2015, p.783). The study must search for grammatical structures, such as the use of active/passive voice, whose objective is to shift the reader’s perception about the perpetrator’s or recipient’s responsibility for an action which, consequently, helps convey a predetermined message (RQ1.1).

- Truth-claims, regarded as powerful statements to gain authority but which, when not thoroughly validated or founded upon negationist and revisionist theories, evidence the existence of radicalization and the drive for fragmenting society into differentiated groups (Kalpokas, 2019, p.23). In this respect, the study has included a rapid exploration of the social networks associated with each (web)site, bearing in mind that social networks are more open to interaction with the audience who are allowed to comment, rate, and share contents as opposed to regular webpages whose contents are mainly decided by their administrators (RQ1.1).

- Rhetoric, also known as the art of speaking and writing effectively, is a key element to articulate discourses aimed at persuading and achieving mind control over the audience which, in the extreme, can reach an instance of abuse called manipulation (Van Dijk, 2015, p.472) which leads to indoctrination. Rhetoric relies on different devices, including metaphor or euphemism, and three primary means of persuasion that were classified by Aristotle into logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos intends to appeal to logical arguments whereas ethos puts the stress on moral principles, this analysis will focus on pathos though, looking for strategies to stir emotions. Precisely, the presence of affective means of persuasion denotes a highly politicized message (Mateus, 2018) aimed at conveying a certain version of the story.

- Ideological stances, both explicit and implicit developed through discursive structures and rhetorical devices that accentuate ‘our good things’ in contrast with ‘their bad things’ following a principle of positive self-representation (Alba-Juez, 2009, p.250). Thus, the study will analyze the existence of either clear expressions or insinuations aligned with ideological standpoints that can clarify the final intention of each (web)site (RQ1.1).

- Algorithm manipulation, mainly detected on Social Networks by messages that pop up on the screen and video platforms that have been set up to offer links to ideological contents either supporting or combating the political stances of each (web)site. This doing requires knowledge about information structure and Internet automation to divulge a certain message (Svantesson & van Caenegem, 2017) (RQ1.2).

In addition, the research has included a short number of in-depth semi-structured interviews. In the words of Fairclough and Wodak, "Discourse is not produced without context and cannot be understood without taking context into consideration” (Grant et al., 2005). Thus, the interviews will help gain insight into the actual motivations of the actors behind the (web)sites, and also, contribute to unveiling new information useful to the analysis allowing the interviewees to share their experiences (K. E. Cook, 2008). The interviews have been also analyzed bearing in mind not only the answers themselves but also the discourse adopted by the respondents, seeking for ideological patterns that can be discovered through the use of specific vocabulary, grammatical structures, and rhetoric, and besides, for vestiges of partisan truth- claims, or hinted ideological stances (RQ1.2).

The survey has comprised an interview by (web)site along with two key figures whose paper is considered relevant to the study, María Eugenia Yagüe, the daughter of a Francoist general and one of the last first-hand witnesses of the events, and Baltasar Garzón, the former magistrate who fought for the right of families to recover their relatives’ remains. These interviews have facilitated a clearer comprehension of how memory evolves, how different their feelings are, about memory, depending on the participants’ temporal distance from the events, and regarding reconciliation, which their current positions are. The list below includes, in chronological order, the participants’ names and some biographical data whose expanded version may be consulted in Appendix 2.

- Mr. Ricardo Blanco Nestares, Mr. Pedro Navarro Bretón and, Mr. Francisco Marín Yécora, President and members of “La Barranca”7. Grandsons and grandnephew of Republican victims. All of them are already retired, they did not witness the crimes but lived through the Francoist period.

7 “La Barranca” is the Association for the Preservation of Historical Memory in La Rioja.

- Mrs. María Eugenia Yagüe Martínez del Campo. She is the daughter of Francoist general Juan Yagüe. She was also the principal of the ‘General Yagüe’ school and the first councilwoman of Burgos City Council.

- Mr. Emilio Silva Barrera, President of ARMH8, the main organization searching for the victims’ graves. Sociologist and journalist, he is the grandson of a Republican victim and also, one of the founders of ARMH.

- Mr. José María Gonzalez Díaz-Medino, President of Valdenoceda’s Association9. He is the grandson of a former convict dead in Valdenoceda and runs a family company for PPE distribution.

- Mr. Emilio de Miguel Moreno, Secretary of FNFF10. He is a retired lawyer and also a former politician who has taken place in political parties such as the Party of National Action.

- Ph.D. Santiago Cantera Montenegro, Prior of the ‘Holy Cross of El Valle de los Caídos’ Abbey. He holds a doctorate in History. He showed a firm opposition to the exhumation of Francisco Franco.

- Mr. Pablo Linares Clemente, President of ADVC11. He is the grandson of a former convict who participated in the construction of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’. He runs his own IT business and has published several books defending the values of the Site.

- Mr. Baltasar Garzón Real is a former judge of the Spanish National Court. He was the examining magistrate investigating the most important criminal cases in Spain. In 1998, he issued an international warrant against Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. Later, in 2008, he opened an inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Francoist government.

Regarding Ethics, there is a need for careful protection of sensitive data while managing the participants’ identity which cannot be published without explicit consent. However,

8 ARMH is the Spanish acronym for the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory.

9 The official name is Association of Valdenoceda’s Relatives of Victims.

10 FNFF is the Spanish acronym for the Francisco Franco National Foundation.

11 ADVC is the acronym for the Association for the Defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’.

constructive collaboration has been encountered from the participants’ side who, fully aware of how this kind of study is contributing to forging public opinion, have adopted a sympathetic attitude. Although, the usual guidelines concerning consent, privacy, and respect need to be followed as a guarantee for both participants and researcher. Furthermore, the investigator himself has needed to envisage where the line has been drawn and avoid asking painful questions about crimes and torture which, even with the respondents’ permission, could have led to unnecessary affliction. Further, ethics is a wide concept beyond consent and secrecy and notwithstanding personal opinions on the topic, the researcher must respect the participant’s voice and avoid maneuvers to silence or disguise a part of the story.

7 ANALYSIS

This chapter addresses the analytical study of the selected (web)sites of memory - which includes a glance at their activity on social networks - along with the most relevant inferences from interviews, and a brief description of the findings whose relevance will be the subject of further discussion in relation to the research questions. A summary of the textual analysis, the interview questionnaires, and some interesting extracts from the interviews can be found in Appendix 1, 2, and 3.

7.1 General features (RQ1.2)

The different (web)sites have been initiated by people with diverse backgrounds, unequal economic resources, and also, with different ideological stances which, apparently, confirms the democratization of memory-making (Garde-Hansen, 2011, p.46). Altogether, this gives rise to a series of patterns that differentiate the (web)sites, supporting and not supporting the Republic, beyond the contents themselves which somewhat reflects their different vital experiences. Thus, the (web)sites run by La Barranca12, Valdenoceda13, and ARMH14 have a tendency to present contents written in the first person, mainly plural, looking for public identification with their cause. On the contrary, the (web)sites developed by FNFF15, the Abbey16, and ADVC17 are more prone to use the third person, in a more administrative style wherein more traditional and religious terms sporadically appear. Likewise, there are also disparities in appearance, more colorful and disorganized the Republican (web)sites as opposed to their counterparts, lighter in color, adopting sober and articulate journalist or blogging styles, and transmitting an image of peaceful normality. All in all, it seems to be a picture of two opposing worlds, the first one

12 La Barranca is the (web)site of “La Barranca” Association for the Preservation of Historical Memory in La Rioja, in charge of a civil cemetery for Republican victims. Among its contents, it is possible to find news concerning historical memory in La rioja, a list of the victims, articles, poetry, images and videos, some of them with educational purposes.

13 Exhumación de Valdenoceda is the (web)site of the Association of Valdenoceda’s Relatives of Victims whose work has focused on the exhumation of Republican victims who died in Valdenoceda’s prison. The (web)site has worked as a meeting point for relatives, and includes forensic reports, images from exhumations, a list of the victims, emotive videos of relatives, articles, etc.

14 ARMH is the Spanish acronym for the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, a large organization initially aimed at the search and exhumation of Republican victims. Its (web)site includes news, forensic reports, articles, recorded testimonies, guidelines for seeking victims... The (web)site has also gathered a vast number of contents related to El Valle de los Caídos.

15 FNFF, is the Spanish acronym for the Francisco Franco National Foundation, an organization established to preserve and divulge the political, social and military legacy of Francisco Franco. The (web)site presents a large number of articles related to the former Head of State and, among them, one of the core topics is El Valle de los Caídos.

16 Valle de los Caídos is the (web)site of the Holy Cross of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ Abbey. developed by the Benedictine order in charge of the Site, whose custody was entrusted by Francisco Franco himself. Among its contents, it is possible to find religious news and a practical guide of activities carried out on the Site, and the Site itself which includes their foundational purposes.

17 ADVC is the acronym for the Association for the Defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, an organization established whose main purpose is the promotion and divulgation of the Site. The (web)site comprises a series of articles and news items, mainly denouncing political decisions concerning the Site. Some of their articles are also published by the Franco National Foundation.

popular and improvised, in contrast with the second, official and orderly which somehow reproduces the Francoist trope of uncontrolled anti-Spain versus harmonious Spain (Vincent, 2010, p.52) and replicates Barthes’s (1957, p.150) myths of transforming left as opposed to eternalizing right.

Regarding contents, the Republican (web)sites – La Barranca, Valdenoceda, and ARMH - make use of emotions more effectively through touching stories of orphans, widows, and broken families as affective bonds that contribute to forging what can be called ‘communities of memory’ (Aguilar, 2020, p.289). Their (web)sites include lists of victims, and furthermore, narratives of tortures and massacres that are told hinting at controversial parallelisms with the Nazi Holocaust (Vincent, 2010, p.65), looking for emotional responses to influence the making of the group’s identity (López, 2013, p.94). This practice constitutes an evident case of analogical bridging that occurs when an event is compared with another one, whose injustice is undisputed, to reinforce the legitimacy of the own claims (Oleson, 2015, p.47). When asked about the extremeness of such a comparison, José María Gonzalez18 (Valdenoceda) stops short: “… I am convinced that the Francoists wanted precisely to exterminate the 'reds', not just those of Valdenoceda, but the 'reds' in general …”

7.2 Multimodality (RQ1.1) (RQ1.2)

The battle for the memory has necessitated recruiting its soldiers (Wydell, 2013, p.78), armed with new digital weapons in which each army boasts of the old colors, though. According to Jan Assman (2008, p.113), the past is not kept alive as such but stored in symbols to reclaim the past as ‘ours’, thus, the symbology present on the (web)sites clearly differs from each other but always denotes their political side, in their attempt to claim for memory ownership. Hence, both flags, the Republican tricolor (La Barranca, Valdenoceda, and ARMH) and the regular Spanish (ADVC) are displayed as signs of partisanry. Moreover, Francoist imagery is also frequent, and among them, it is possible to discover Franco’s coat of arms (the FNFF’s symbol), a double- headed eagle - that includes the previous one - appearing in a promotional video (Abbey’s choir), or the statues of St. John and the Eagle19 on ADCV’s Facebook site. Nevertheless, the presence of politicians is rare, only Ione Belarra20 appears in a video handing over the exhumed remains of a victim to the relatives..., as expressed by Emilio Silva21 (ARMH) when

18 José María Gonzalez Díaz-Medino is the President of the Association of Valdenoceda’s Relatives of Victims (appendix 2).

19 The Eagle of St. John was used in the armorial bearings of Francoist Spain, and it is commonly known as Franco’s eagle.

20 Ione Belarra is a Spanish politician from the far-left party Podemos who currently serves as Minister of Social Rights.

21 Emilio Silva Barrera is the President of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) (appendix 2)

interviewed, “victims should be exploited for politics rather than for political parties”. From a different angle, visual styles are diverse, but some tendencies do exist. Thus, Republican (web)sites are darker, less structured but richer in visual contents aimed at moving the audience through the exhibition of distressing images, testimonies of suffering, and human remains (Renshaw, 2011, p.82) as powerful memory carriers intended to appeal to emotions (Oleson, 2015, p.46) and assert the truth of their claims (Rose, 2016, p.224). In short, two opposing conceptions of memory, the Republican memory tortured by oblivion versus a Francoist blank memory that insists on the trope of order, once the Civil War was concluded (Vincent, 2010, p.60).

7.3 Lexis (RQ1.1)

The choice of words is one of the best markers of political alignment in narrations of the past wherein discourse is directed against an opponent (Schmidt, 2008, p.197), consequently, there is a clear distinction between the names and adjectives used to qualify - depending on whether the (web)site supports the Republican cause - the supposed ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ sides. On the one hand, the Republican (web)sites – Barranca, Valdenoceda, and ARMH - describe Franco’s followers as ‘military rebels’, ‘coup plotters’, ‘fascists’ or ‘Phalangist22 gunmen’ able to ‘kidnap’, ‘assassinate’, or even commit ‘genocide’ in ‘post-war extermination camps’ with absolute ‘brutality’, moreover, they are depicted as cunning creatures who, ‘with premeditation and treachery’, ‘orchestrate’ their ‘cleansing operations’, in contrast with their victims, capable of feeling ‘affection for others’ and stand up for ‘dignity’ or ‘justice’, in short, endowed with the most elevated values. On the other hand, the presumed Francoist (web)sites – FNFF and ADVC – have a very different understanding of the events, in their case, ‘patriots’ and ‘victors’ fought a ‘liberation war’ against those who, with ‘iconoclastic and anticlerical fury’, attempted to ‘martyrize’ or, later on, to ‘desecrate the tombs’. Precisely, religious vocabulary was a common characteristic of Francoist rhetoric that persists not only on the Abbey’s (web)site, which is understandable, but also throughout FNFF’s and ADVC’s (web)sites wherein it is possible to encounter terms such as ‘crusade’, ‘martyrdom’, or ‘Christianity’ as clear standpoints of national-Catholicism, the official ideology of Franco’s regime (Bueno, 2013, p.88; Vincent, 2010, p.60) that relied on religious traditions as powerful bonds for group identity (J. Assman, 2008, p.114). In this respect, the response of Emilio de Miguel23 (FNFF) is surprisingly simple:

22 The Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx") was a nationalist party launched by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, in part aligned with the Italian Fascist movement. The Falange fought on the Nationalist side against the Republic.

23 Emilio de Miguel Moreno is the Secretary of the Francisco Franco National Foundation (appendix 2)

“... the term crusade was given by the Pontificate ... but it must be accepted that this term, nowadays, is no longer in use. We have not used it for a long time ...”.

7.4 Grammar (RQ1.1)

The analysis of the texts has corroborated that, as expected, the stories are told taking advantage of simple but efficacious grammatical devices. Throughout the (web)sites, uncountable accounts of torture and crimes can be found in which the victims usually adopt a passive role in contrast to those of the wrongdoers on whom the active roles fall, which clearly manifests the imbalance of power (Jackson, 2002, pp.43-45). Thus, a crime may be described very differently depending on the side, for example, "a woman… killed by a group of phalangists" (ARMH, 2021) in which the woman is killed by Francoist militants, but “both anarchists died” (ADVC, 2021) which denotes the active participation of the anti-Francoist subjects in their death, occurred owing to their wrong behavior. Again, the exception is the Abbey which, due to evident religious reasons, has adopted a more neutral position.

7.5 Truth-claims (RQ1.1)

When few direct witnesses of the traumatic events are still alive, the comprehension of the events may be shaped through mediation (Høg Hansen et al., 2015, p.8) which, in this case, occurs on the (web)sites of memory. Therefore, the blurred boundaries between the factual events and the different versions of such events have given rise to a continuous struggle for truth ownership, easily perceptible on the (web)sites, in which the different actors provide emotions, alleged scientific evidence, or simply, a gross manipulation of reality to gain acceptance among the public. Hence, the own interviewees underpin their stories on appeals to rationality in an attempt to demonstrate how, despite affective ties with their ideological opponents, they have sided with justice and reason.

In an extract of his interview, Francisco Marín24 (La Barranca) relates emotionally how he made his political choice “... I knew who the dead and the murderers were because my mother was also right-wing and my godfather was a fascist, I loved him the same as my communist uncles ..., I perfectly knew who was who, and I sided with whom my heart told me...”, and similarly, Pablo Linares25 (ADVC) anticipates his filiation to clear doubts about his disputed impartiality, “… I am 51

24 Francisco Marín Yécora, member of “La Barranca” Association for the Preservation of Historical Memory in La Rioja (appendix 2)

25 Pablo Linares Clemente is the President of the Association for the Defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ (appendix 2)

years old. I am the grandson of a Republican worker in 'El Valle de los Caídos', did you have this information? ...”

Yet, truth is also claimed through scientific support and for this reason, the Republican (web)sites provide forensic reports about the corpses exhumed by their organizations (Valdenoceda) whereas the Francoist webpage (FNFF) includes interviews with international scholars. Moreover, the critical position of FNFF, Abbey, and ADVC is intended to debunk legends - such as the practice of forced labor in ‘El Valle’ - directly or by raising doubts about the credibility of the Republican assertions. Still, the most evident claims for truth ownership are offered by the interviewees themselves through vivid narrations of their interpretation of the facts which, even if debatable, are part of their inherited second-generation post-memory (Høg Hansen et al., 2015, p.7; Morcillo, 2013b, p.2):

“… they called my father the 'Butcher of Badajoz26' but that is a lie, and it is proven that he enters Badajoz and continues because he intended to reach Madrid…, the socialists rose against the Republic in Asturias27 (in 1934), and then, my father was recognized as a great military man…” (Maria Eugenia Yagüe28)

7.6 Rhetoric (RQ1.1)

According to Kendall R. Phillips (2015, p.14), the concept of public memory may be seen as intensely rhetorical. Consequently, the analysis has been also centered on the search for rhetoric styles and specific figurae and, among them, metaphors, hyperboles, or the usage of irony to defend ideological positions. With regard to this, the three Republican (web)sites draw on more emotional rhetoric that presents their cause as legitimate, constantly appealing to justice, ethics, and victimhood, in short, using the passions inherent to ‘memory carriers' through moving aspects of the events (Esposito, 2008, p.184). By contrast, FNFF and ADVC tend to perpetuate the ancient rhetoric, by repeating mottos of the Francoist regime such as ‘the undefeated Caudillo’ or the inclusion of national Catholic formulae like ‘we all implore God for his help’. On the Republican side, discourses are frequently constructed by means of literary figurae

26 Juan Yagüe y Blanco was a Spanish military officer during the Civil War, he was known as the "Butcher of Badajoz" because he is believed to have ordered the killing of about 4,000 Republicans, including wounded men in the hospital. He was interviewed by journalist John T. Whitaker (New York Herald Tribune) and was quoted as follows: "Of course we shot them - he said to me - what do you expect? Was I supposed to take 4,000 reds with me as my column advanced, racing against time? Was I expected to turn them loose in my rear and let them make Badajoz red again?"

27 The Asturian strike of 1934 was undertaken by regional miners against the outcome of the 1933 Spanish general election. The strike developed into a revolutionary uprising aimed at overthrowing the conservative government. Colonel Juan Yagüe was sent, by the Republican government, to retake the towns from the miners. The revolt has been shown as the prelude to the Spanish Civil War.

28 María Eugenia Yagüe Martínez del Campo is the daughter of Francoist general Juan Yagüe (appendix 2)

utilized to enhance their values and criticize the behavior of their political rivals, thus, the visitor will discover on these (web)sites how Republican widows ‘are dressed in black and dignity’ to face ‘the brave cowardice’ of ‘barking’ young men. Likewise, the Francoist (web)site, FNFF, presents elaborated contents which take advantage of several literary resources, from metaphors ‘… hunting Catholics was their preferred sport …’, to paradoxes ‘… Spaniards who do not want to be Spanish …’ or plain comparisons like ‘the fallen Buddhas’ and ‘the demolished crosses’ which are both victims of barbaric extremism. Conversely, ADCV frequently fights the dialectical battle through irony - noticeable in many examples throughout the text - to raise doubts, “we will be generous and believe, just for a moment…’, to dispute legitimacy, ‘the acting government’, or even to make fun of the adversary, ‘the DOCTOR Sánchez29’. As an exception, the Abbeys’ (web)page avoids the usage of Francoist rhetoric or sarcasm following the post-dictatorship Vatican neutrality.

7.7 Ideological stances (RQ1.1)

As almost a rule, the (web)sites deploy a series of well-constructed arguments that contrast the goodness of their political positions and the badness of their rivals’ behaviors. Among them, the reader comes across short descriptors like "… summary judgments against us …" (Valdenoceda, 2021) that immediately identifies oppressors and victims, rightness claims such as “… those who fought for freedom and democracy … " (ARMH, 2021) and " … from the commitment to the truth …" (ADVC, 2021), or tributes to the courage of their victims like " … they behaved as brave, ... all of them looked towards us with impressive serenity …" (FNFF, 2021). On occasions, the own fault is recognized but presented as insignificant in comparison with greater wrongdoing like “… there were also crimes perpetrated by the Republican side… but quickly corrected by the lawful government …” (Barranca, 2021) that presents the murders as almost committed involuntarily. Nonetheless, there are different degrees of belligerence, from mild assertions, "the truth only has one way" (FNFF, 2021), to highly politicized declarations, “… using legal tools of political power is the deep ideological sectarianism and the spirit of revenge against people already deceased …” (ADVC, 2021). Interestingly, even the religious discourse participates in the ideological dispute, "the remains of more than 50 blessed martyrs in the 1936 war" (Abbey, 2021) which, whether purposely or not, serves as a reminder for the Republican excesses against the Catholic clergy which, back them, sustained the myth of the Francoist crusade (Vincent, 2010, p.56). In connection with this, the Abbey somehow sustains the original

29 Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, general secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), is the current Prime Minister of Spain. In 2018, the Spanish press raised doubts about alleged plagiarism concerning one of his books. The suspicion was extended to his doctoral thesis.

message of ‘El Valle’, through which reconciliation is heralded while José Antonio Primo de Rivera30 - the messianic Phalangist leader executed during the first months of the war – maintains his prominent status (Bueno, 2013, p.94). All these demonstrations of support for one side while denigrating the other, along with straight political declarations, help distinguish the political stance of each (web)site, as a clear example of what has been called ‘the ideologization of memory’, a kind of manipulation facilitated by the variability in the narrative of our stories (Ricœur & Goldenstein, 2006).

7.8 Social networks and algorithm manipulation (RQ1.2)

But notwithstanding the dialectical weaponry exhibited throughout the (web)sites, the real battle is happening on social networks which allow hand-to-hand combat for memory ownership through their own dynamics, in short, the way in which individuals communicate and interact with each other on social networks (Srinivasan et al., 2017). Therefore, through media practices such as editing, tagging, and describing, the different agents frame and reframe contents according to their political ideologies in a struggle for memory appropriation (Smit et al., 2017). In this regard, the visualization of La Barranca’s videos on YouTube provides the first clue, once discovered how the audience bumps into far-right videos that are offered as related content. Similarly, ARMH’s videos on YouTube and Abbey’s Facebook account are also associated with extreme right sites. Is that by chance or is that happening through algorithm manipulation? Interestingly, US agencies have already warned about YouTube’s recommendation algorithm as a powerful tool when manipulated by what they call ‘bad actors’ (Lewis, 2018). Furthermore, some organizations such as Valdenoceda, ARMH, or FNFF are very active on social networks where more politized items are shared and, in addition, there is also an aim for international visibility as occurs on ARMH’s and FNFF’s Facebook accounts whose contents are partially in English. Conversely, secrecy seems to be pivotal for some (web)sites, such as FNFF and ADVC, that promote the use of Telegram or member-only Facebook accounts.

… the Association's website was an instrument of expression until social networks appeared with force, we have almost abandoned the website… the association's largest organ of expression has become Facebook ... (Pablo Linares31)

30 José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia was the founder of Falange Española - or Spanish Phalanx - a far-right party that supported Francisco Franco and whose ideology bears some similarities with Italian fascism. He is popularly known as José Antonio and his name appeared on many funereal slabs placed on the external wall of Spanish churches and cathedrals with the motto, ‘Fallen for God and for Spain’.

31 Pablo Linares Clemente is the President of the Association for the Defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ (appendix 2)

From a different angle, their number of followers on Twitter is relatively low, from 2,650 (Valdenoceda) to 39,000 (ARMH) which gives an idea of their current scarce representativeness in Spanish society, at least among younger generations more acquainted with social networks.

7.9 Overall interpretation of the analysis

The current discourses present on (web)sites of memory related to three cemeteries for victims of the Francoist period are not new, but a continuation of the old Francoist and anti-Francoist rhetoric. Among the (web)sites, three of them – La Barranca, Valdenoceda, and ARMH – are openly defending the defeated Republic and align themselves with left-wing political ideologies as opposed to FNFF and ADVC whose political stances, with little attempt at concealment, reproduce the official Francoist discourse of national-Catholicism. As an exception, the Abbey’s (web)site does not provide explicit political messages but the continuation of the original Francoist discourse for ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, a Site conceived as a monument to reconciliation by Franco himself. There are different degrees of militance though. On the one hand, Valdenoceda and ARMH on the Republican side, along with FNFF and ADVC on the other side, take all advantage of strong discourses, the former claiming for reparation while the latter advocate for the politics of forgetting and the maintenance of the status quo achieved as a consequence of the Amnesty Law, which has brought about opposed affective responses (López, 2013, p.98). On the other hand, La Barranca, despite its left-wing tincture, and the Abbey, whose religious position imposes limitations to its message, are more openly committed to reconciliation, without renouncing their beliefs but adopting a more positive approach. (RQ1.1)

Their selection and framing of contents - including emotive testimonies, partisan political articles concerning recent Franco’s exhumation, stories of past atrocities that frequently rely on the old rhetoric, perturbing images of death, etcetera - are targeting a predetermined public whose sensitiveness appears to be aligned with extreme ideologies, whose commitment to national reconciliation is debatable. But once again, La Barranca and the Abbey seem more prone to convey a milder message alluding to educational purposes whose fruit, though, is not borne yet (RQ1.2).

Their audience, in view of the figures provided by their social networks, remains the same even if, as explained by Francisco Marín32 (La Barranca) the number of visitors to the physical Site

32 Francisco Marín Yécora, member of “La Barranca” Association for the Preservation of Historical Memory in La Rioja (appendix 2)

has been dramatically increased by “… the political exacerbation on the national level …”. The contribution to national reconciliation is hereby poorer than expected since discourses and actors - according to direct responses provided by the interviewees - continue blaming each other for the recent climate of growing confrontation that has given rise to extremist drifts which, after the advent of social networks have discovered a new battlefield, a perfect breeding ground for emotions and fakes, and it is precisely there, that the fight is currently taking place. (RQ1).

7.10 A reflection on the analysis

Discourse Analysis is a powerful tool to distill ideas encrypted on a text, and further, to bring to light vested interests that, like in this case study, are behind the (web)sites. The previous dissection of contents has facilitated a clearer comprehension of how the ongoing battle of memories is sponsored by different actors whose main purpose, beyond any doubt, is to impose a partisan version of history. However, the analysis has brought about another unexpected outcome owing to the research process itself, through which personal biases also evolve while the picture is enlarged by both the perusal of the (web)sites’ contents, and the invaluable responses proffered by the interviewees. And precisely, that is what memory is about, a continuous struggle to influence ideas and sentiments (Phillips, 2015, pp.21-22) manifested by the drive to share emotions and remembrances with others. Maybe, for this reason, the development of the analysis has flowed smoothly despite the pandemic restrictions, eased by the urge of spreading a message, under which, the participants have hastened to provide phone numbers of ideological co-religionists, attempting to reinforce their arguments. From the outset, the study has sanctioned theories of memory, a chameleonic device whose journey, as argued by Nora (Wydell, 2013, p.84), goes through at least three stages which, in the Spanish case, can be identified with institutions such as the so-called ‘women in black’, second-generation post- memory, and finally, ‘lieux de mémoire’, both physical and digital. Thus, the daughter of the general will boast of her father’s archive and their pictures with different political leaders from Herman Göring33 to Nicolas Redondo Terreros34. The oldies of La Barranca will struggle to bridge the ‘floating gap’, the lack of information in oral tradition when the last witnesses have disappeared (J. Assman, 2008, p.113; Vansina, 1985, p,23), appealing to their second- generation so vivid recollections. And finally, the youngest generation, more politically belligerent, will fight for memory ownership while deploying the whole arsenal provided by the

33 Hermann Göring was a German political leader and one of the key figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was sentenced to death in 1946 during the Nuremberg trials.

34 Nicolás Redondo Terreros is a Spanish politician, who was general secretary of the Socialist Party of the Basque Country.

media, in the post-truth era. Yet, memory is fragile and many times, not only the group but also the individuals themselves cling to the last iota of memory without which, their own identity is put in jeopardy while the subject approaches the abyss of oblivion.

“… If forty of my eighty-eight years are taken away from me, what do I have left? I have lived through that time, and I was the first woman councilor of Burgos City Hall, we know that there was censorship, but I tell my life, my version, and I am entitled to my own memory ...” (Maria Eugenia Yagüe35).

35 María Eugenia Yagüe is the daughter of Francoist general Juan Yagüe (appendix 2)

8 CONCLUSION

The ambition of this Degree Project has been to understand whether, and by which means, different Internet artifacts related to three sites of memory – concerning the Spanish Francoist period - are able to influence the audience and contribute to national reconciliation. The research process has relied on Discourse Analysis to unveil which are the messages present on the Net, and to which actors appertain a number of what can be called (web)sites of memory. The analysis has been intended to examine what is said, what is hinted at, and what could have been manipulated.

The research process has allowed me to discover discourses deeply embedded in ideological stances whose main characteristic is the reaffirmation of their version of the story, offering a black-and-white picture of the events on which villains and heroes are clearly identified, and adversaries are still perceived as enemies. Hence, discourses lack originality and bear worrying similarities with previous narratives of Francoist and anti-Francoist partisans through which actors appeal to emotions in order to sustain their truth-claims (RQ1.1). What is more, the recent exhumation of Francisco Franco has somehow inflamed passions which, in turn, has resulted in more extreme discourses. Under these circumstances, the contents seem to be selected and designed for a specific audience, deeply committed to the cause, and avid to consume a product that justifies the perpetuation of sectarian positions associated with both far- right and far-left ideologies (RQ1.2). All things considered, little contribution to national reconciliation, if any, is provided by the current discourses present on the (web)sites (RQ1).

But despite this drastic conclusion, I must also acknowledge that, in the case of Valdenoceda or ARMH, the Internet has enabled memory campaigns to occur through spontaneous links and popular participation via their (web)site blogs and forums as outstanding examples of grassroots actions which have resulted in nationwide movements (Renshaw, 2011, p.18). Evidently, the relevance of mediatized initiatives of the kind resides in their impact on the future, on how the revision of ideas and the maintenance of collective memory traumas in the public sphere may bring about social justice (Høg Hansen et al., 2015, pp. 4-6) through direct confrontation with our historical mistakes and the responsibility, from one generation to the next, to critically assess our heritage (Morcillo, 2013a). From a different angle, I honestly believe that there is a glimmer of hope incarnated by humble initiatives like this one of La Barranca, a civil cemetery run by second-generation ‘oldies’ who “neither forget nor forgive” but are committed to conveying a message of sincere reconciliation and whose initiative could be replicated on other Sites. Their current project is to convert the Site into a commemorative place - to mourn the dead, relate the horrendous crimes, and promote educational activities – in clear alignment with the notion of '‘performative memory’ (Wydell, 2013, pp.85-87) which has encountered

sympathy in the regional Parliament. Needless to say, a deeper knowledge of preterit events – also facilitated by their (web)sites - might help to finish the fight between divergent versions of the past which, once reconciled, should serve as a basis for seeking justice and forging a future (Phillips, 2015, p.16). And it is precisely there to where I always return, to the Freirian idea that human advancement can only be achieved by raising social consciousness through constructive dialogue and education (Olmeda & Luque, 2020), as Baltasar Garzón36 serenely argued in his interview:

“... what perhaps we have lacked is the education of memory ... that is a great mistake of all those who are against the memorialist movement, memory is not past, memory is present, memory forges the future because, in the end, we will encounter the same problems, if problems are not addressed ...”

Finally, the research methodology has been designed to analyze a specific case study following a two-step scheme to ensure the reliability of the research, first the scrutiny of Internet contents, and second, the triangulation of the findings by direct interviews with key figures in the Spanish battle for memory. However, the study also presents several weaknesses, some of them owing to the omnipresent COVID-19 restrictions that have thwarted visits to the Sites and in-person interviews which, to a certain extent, hinder intuitive comprehension of the problem. By contrast, other limitations stem from personal biases that may be easily accentuated by the current political circumstances in the country. Regarding validity, always within a Spanish context, grounds should be sufficient to be generalized to other sites and (web)sites of memory, bearing in mind the diverse features of all three cemeteries along with the overall representativeness of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’. Nonetheless, if this DP could be rewritten, the use of complementary quantitative methods to corroborate results, and the inclusion of ‘Paracuellos del Jarama37’, a Francoist cemetery, might have helped broaden the picture and include a different perspective from which, at least once, victors played the victim role. Whether conclusions can be expanded to the whole society, only time has the answer, but the clues are already there, and despite possible flawed interpretation of the findings, this DP proffers some antecedents for further research once the new Law of Democratic Memory has been passed and the political climate has changed, taking into account that wounds remain open and, like any social issue, the situation continues evolving.

Word Count: 13,647

36 Baltasar Garson is a former judge of the Spanish National Court who has also worked as a legal adviser at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, currently, he works as a reputed lawyer for human rights on the international level. (appendix 2)

37 Paracuellos del Jarama is known by a series of mass killings – more than 2,000 victims among civilians and soldiers – carried out by the Republican faction that took place at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbey. (2021). Valle de los Caídos. https://valledeloscaidos.es

Abraham, F. (2018). Histor(iograph)y and Memory in`Post-Truth Era`. Towards a European Public Sphere? Some Theoretical Considerations. Journal of Media Research, 11(1 (30)), 82–101. https://doi.org/10.24193/jmr.30.6

ADVC. (2021). El Valle de los Caídos. http://www.elvalledeloscaidos.es/portal/

Aguilar, P. (2020). From mourning severed to mourning recovered: Tribute and remembrance strategies for families of the victims of Francoist repression. Memory Studies, 13(3), 277– 294. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020914013

Alba-Juez, L. (2009). Perspectives on Discourse Analysis : Theory and Practice. In Perspectives on Discourse Analysis : Theory and Practice. Cambridge Scholars Publising.

Allen, M. T. (2007). Realms of oblivion: The Vienna Auschwitz trial. Central European History, 40(3), 397–428.

ARMH. (2021). Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica. https://memoriahistorica.org.es/?s=valle+de+los+caidos

Ashuri, T. (2012). (Web)sites of memory and the rise of moral mnemonic agents. New Media and Society, 14(3), 441–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444811419636

Assman, A. (2008). Canon and Archive. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 97–107). De Gruyter.

Assman, J. (2008). Communicative and Cultural Memory. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 109– 118). De Gruyter.

Barranca. (2021). La Barranca. https://labarranca.org

Barthes, R. (1957). Mythologies. The Noonday Press.

Blatter, J. K. (2008). Case Study. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (Issue November, pp. 68–71). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Bueno, A. (2013). Valle de los Caídos. A Monument to Defy Time And Oblivion. In A. G. Morcillo (Ed.), Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War (pp. 51–109). Brill.

Cazorla-Sánchez, A. (2013). From Anti-Fascism to Humanism: The Spanish Civil War as a Crisis of Memory. In A. G. Morcillo (Ed.), Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War (pp. 21–50). Brill.

Cinta Ramblado-Minero, M. (2011). Sites of memory/sites of oblivion in contemporary Spain. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispanicos, 36(1), 29–42.

Cook, K. E. (2008). In-Depth Interview. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Cook, S. (2009). Cultural Memory on the Move in Contemporary Travel Writing: W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. In A. Erll & A. Rigney (Eds.), Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (pp. 15–30). Walter de Gruyter.

Cotter, C. (2015). Discourse and Media. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.),

The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2013). Conceptualizing Mediatization : Contexts , Traditions , Arguments. Communication Theory, 23, 191–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12019

Cué, C. E. (2020). Spain drafts bill against remaining legacy of Franco era. El Pais. https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-09-15/spain-drafts-bill-against-remaining- legacy-of-franco-era.html de Finna, A., & Johnstone, B. (2015). Discourse Analysis and Narrative. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell. de Greiff, P. (2014). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence, Pablo de Greiff - Mission to Spain. In United Nations General Assembly. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020818300024012 de Saint-Laurent, C., Brescó de Luna, I., Awad, S. H., & Wagoner, B. (2017). Collective memory and social sciences in the post-truth era. Culture and Psychology, 23(2), 147–155. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X17695769

Delso, R., Amann, A., & Soriano, F. (2018). Time, Architecture and Domination: The Valley of the Fallen. Heritage and Society, 11(2), 126–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159032X.2019.1670534

Den Boer, P. (2008). Loci memoriae—Lieux de mémoire. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 19–25). De Gruyter.

Eiroa, M. (2020). Narrativas digitales sobre la Guerra Civil española y el franquismo: la memoria en un blog. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 97(10), 1631–1651. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2020.1836889

Encarnación, O. G. (2008). Reconciliation after democratization: Coping with the past in Spain. Political Science Quarterly, 123(3), 435–459. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538- 165X.2008.tb00630.x

Erll, A. (2009). Remembering across Time, Space, and Cultures: Premediation, Remediation and the “Indian Mutiny.” In A. Erll & A. Rigney (Eds.), Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (pp. 110–138). Walter de Gruyter.

Erll, A. (2011). Travelling memory. Parallax, 17(4), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2011.605570

Espinoza, A. E., Piper, I., & Fernández, R. A. (2014). The study of memory sites through a Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method: a research note. Qualitative Research, 14(6), 712–728. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794113483301

Esposito, E. (2008). Social forgetting: A systems-theory approach. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 182–189). De Gruyter.

Fairclough, N. (2003). Analazing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. Routledge.

FNFF. (2021). Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco. https://fnff.es/busqueda/1/valle de los caidos

Fortunati, V., & Lamberti, E. (2008). Cultural Memory: A European Perspective. In A. Erll &

A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 127–137). De Gruyter.

Foucault, M. (1984). Politics and the Study of Discourse. In M. Cousins & A. Hussain (Eds.), Michel Foucault (pp. 53–72). Palgrave Macmillan.

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere : A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing. Social Text, 25–26, 56–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/466240

Garde-Hansen, J. (2011). Media and Memory. Edinburgh University Press.

Grant, D., Michelson, G., Wailes, N., & Oswick, C. (2005). Guest editorial: discourse and organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(1), 6–15. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810510579814

Halbwachs, M. (1950). La mémoire collective (Édition é). Les Presses Universitaires de France.

Halbwachs, M., & Lasén Díaz, A. . (1995). Memoria colectiva y memoria histórica. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 69, 209–219. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40183784

Hall, S. (2013). The Work of Representation. In S. Hall, J. Evans, & S. Nixon (Eds.), Representations. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (2nd ed., pp. 1–47). SAGE.

Harsin, J. (2018a). Post-Truth and Critical Communication Studies. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 0, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.757

Harsin, J. (2018b). Post-Truth Populism: The French Anti-Gender Theory Movement and Cross-Cultural Similarities. Communication, Culture and Critique, 11(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcx017

Hensmans, M. (2021). Exploring the dark and bright sides of Internet democracy: Ethos- reversing and ethos-renewing digital transformation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 168(March), 120777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120777

Hepp, A., Hjarvard, S., & Lundby, K. (2015). Mediatization : theorizing the interplay between media , culture and society. Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 37(2), 314 –324. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715573835

Høg Hansen, A., Hemer, O., & Tufte, T. (2015). Memory on Trial. Media, Citizenship and Social Justice. In A. Høg Hansen, O. Hemer, & T. Thomas (Eds.), Memory on Trial. Media, Citizenship and Social Justice (pp. 3–12). Lit Verlag.

Holtorf, C. (2015). Archaeology and Cultural Memory. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 1, 881–884. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.13021-1

Hoskins, A. (2009). Digital Network Memory. In A. Erll & A. Rigney (Eds.), Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (pp. 91–106). Walter de Gruyter.

Hoskins, A. (2011). Anachronisms of Memory : From Memory Ecology. In M. Neiger, O. Meyers, & E. Zandberg (Eds.), On media memory : Collective memory in a new media age (pp. 278–288). Palgrave Macmillan.

Huyssen, A. (2013). Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia. Public Culture. Globalization, 12(1), 57–77. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383215-004

Jackson, M. (2002). The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectiviry. Museum Tusculanum Press.

Kalpokas, I. (2019). A Political Theory of Post-Truth. In A Political Theory of Post-Truth. Palgrave P. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97713-3_1

Leggott, S. (2013). Remembering the Spanish Civil War in Fiction: Dulce Chacón’s La voz dormida and Ángeles Caso ’s Un largo silencio. In A. Raychaudhuri (Ed.), The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past (pp. 168–175). Cardiff University of Wales Press.

Lempert, M. (2015). Discourse and Religion. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Lewis, P. (2018). Senator warns YouTube algorithm may be open to manipulation by “bad actors” - Senator Mark Warner of Virginia warns of ‘optimising for outrageous, salacious, and often fraudulent content’ amid 2016 election concerns. The Guardian: Web Edition Articles, 5–8. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/05/senator-warns- youtube-algorithm-may-be-open-to-manipulation-by-bad-actors

López, H. (2013). The Spanish Civil War and the Politics of Affectivity in the New Millennium : La guerra de esquelas as an Act of Memory. In A. Raychaudhuri (Ed.), The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past (pp. 90–101). Cambridge University Press.

Martin, J. S. (2019). R.I.P., Rest in Pieces: Mnemonic Transnationality, Travel, and Translation of the Marcos Burial in the Heroes’ Cemetery. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 32(4), 423–437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-019-09330-x

Martínez Mas, S., & Nora, P. (2009). Pierre Nora: España Vive una Guerra Civil de Memorias. Pasajes: Revista de Pensamiento Contemporáneo, 31(31), 70–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41445870

Mateus, S. (2018). Affective rhetoric: What it is and Why it Mmatters. In L. Zhang & C. Clark (Eds.), Affect, Emotion, and Rhetorical Persuasion in Mass Communication (pp. 69–80). Routledge.

Meyer, E. (2008). History, memory and politics. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 173–180). De Gruyter.

Morcillo, A. G. (2013a). Conclusion: Ricoeurs’s le Pouvoir de Faire Mémoire. In A. G. Morcillo (Ed.), Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War (pp. 557–563). Brill. https://eds-b-ebscohost- com.proxy.mau.se/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzY1ODQwMF9fQU41?sid=e1b1e c02-69ee-4533-baa4-51a515b23b29@pdc-v- sessmgr04&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_493&rid=0

Morcillo, A. G. (2013b). Introduction: Post-Memory and Historical Agency. In A. G. Morcillo (Ed.), Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War (pp. 1–18). Brill.

Nora, P. (1989). Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire. Representations, 26(26), 7–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928520

Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2016). Communication and Cultural Identity: An Anthropological Perspective. In O. Hemer & T. Tufte (Eds.), Voice & Matter: Communication, Development and the Cultural Return. (pp. 25–41). Nordicom.

OHCHR. (2014). UN Transitional Justice Expert Pablo de Greiff in First Official Visit to Spain. OHCHR.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14180&LangI D=E

Oleson, T. (2015). Global Injustice Memories. In A. Høg Hansen, O. Hemer, & T. Thomas (Eds.), Memory on Trial. Media, Citizenship and Social Justice (pp. 45–55). Lit Verlag.

Olick, J. K. (2008). From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 151–161). De Gruyter.

Olmeda, G. J., & Luque, D. (2020). Re-readings of Paulo freire in the 21st century. fifty years of pedagogy of the oppressed. Educacion XX1, 23(2), 145–164. https://doi.org/10.5944/educxx1.25640

Philips, S. U. (2015). Language Ideologies. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Phillips, K. R. (2015). The Absence of Memory- Rhetoric and the Question of Public Remembrance. In Memory on Trial: Media, Citizenship and Social Justice (pp. 13–23). Lit Verlag.

Potter, J. (2008). Discourse Analysis. In L. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (pp. 218–220). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Renshaw, L. (2011). Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War. Left Coast Press.

Reulecke, J. (2008). Generation / Generationality , Generativity , and Memory. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 119–124). De Gruyter.

Ricœur, P., & Goldenstein, C. (2006). Mémoire, Histoire, Oubli. Esprit, 323(323), 17–26.

Röger, M. (2009). News Media and Historical Remembrance: Reporting on the Expulsion of Germans in Polish and German Magazines. In A. Erll & A. Rigney (Eds.), Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (pp. 188–203). Walter de Gruyter.

Rose, G. (2016). Visual Methodologies (5th ed.). Sage.

Ruiz, J. (2009). Seventy years on: Historians and repression during and after the Spanish civil war. Journal of Contemporary History, 44(3), 449–472. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009409104118

Samuel, R. (2012). Theatres of Memory. Verso Books.

Schäfer, M. S. (2016). Digital Public Sphere. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, December 2015, 322–328. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc087

Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., & Hamilton, H. E. (2015). Introduction to the First Edition. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Schmidt, S. J. (2008). Memory and Remembrance: A constructivist Approach. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 191–201). De Gruyter.

Sitz, L. (2008). Beyond semiotics and hermeneutics: Discourse analysis as a way to interpret

consumers’ discourses and experiences. Qualitative Market Research, 11(2), 177–191. https://doi.org/10.1108/13522750810864431

Smit, R., Heinrich, A., & Broersma, M. (2017). Witnessing in the new memory ecology: Memory construction of the Syrian conflict on YouTube. New Media and Society, 19(2), 289–307. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815604618

Srinivasan, A., Guo, H., & Devaraj, S. (2017). Who Cares About Your Big Day? Impact of Life Events on Dynamics of Social Networks. Decision Sciences, 48(6), 1062–1097. https://doi.org/10.1111/deci.12255

Svantesson, D. J. B., & van Caenegem, W. (2017). Is it time for an offence of ‘dishonest algorithmic manipulation for electoral gain’? Alternative Law Journal, 42(3), 184–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X17730192

Tannen, D., Hamilton, H. E., & Schiffrin, D. (2015). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Treré, E., & Mattoni, A. (2016). Media ecologies and protest movements: main perspectives and key lessons. Information Communication and Society, 19(3), 290–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1109699

Tufte, T. (2017). Communication and Social Change: A Citizen Perspective. Polity Press.

Valdenoceda. (2021). Exhumación de Valdenodeda. https://exhumacionvaldenoceda.com/

Van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Van Leeuwen, T. (2015). Multimodality. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Vansina, J. (1985). Oral Tradition as History. In Oral Tradition as HIstory (Issue 1). University of Wisconsin Press.

Vickery, G., & Wunsch-Vincent, S. (2007). Participative Web and User-Created Content: Web 2.0, Wikis and Social Networking. In OECD Publications.

Vincent, M. (2010). Breaking the Silence? Memory and Oblivion since the Spanish Civil War. In E. Ben-Ze’ev, R. Ginio, & J. Winter (Eds.), Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century (Issue January 2008, pp. 47–67). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511676178.004

Wilson, J. (2015). Political Discourse. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.). Willey Blackwell.

Winter, J. (2008). Sites of Memory and the Shadow of War. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies : An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 61–74). De Gruyter.

Wydell, C. (2013). (Per)Forming Historical Memories of the Spanish Civil War: Leaving Monuments for Magazines. In A. Raychaudhuri (Ed.), The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past (pp. 76–89). Cardiff University of Wales Press.

Zawadzki, P. (2004). Halbwachs est-il notre contemporain ? Réflexions sur la question du temps dans la démocratie. In D. Yves & C. Haroche (Eds.), Maurice Halbwachs: Espaces, mémoire et psychologie collective (Nouvelle é, pp. 181–203). Éditions de la Sorbonne.

APPENDIX 1 Summary of the Analysis

(Web)site of memory: Asociación La Barranca Accessed on April 10th, 2021

General features The writer speaks in the first person (singular but mainly plural). Articles are related to governmental measures intended to remove Francoist signs (street names, school names…). It is not an open association because membership requires the support of two former members, a very emotive declaration - highly politicized - whose final statement is LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC. The contents are diverse (books, videos, poems...), there is a list of victims. Multimodality The Republican flag is always present, a cenotaph for the victims of the Francoist dictatorship (executed people) is the (web)site's symbol, videos and documentaries related to mass graves and exhumations, emotional songs, Francoist victims' pictures, and their aging relatives, socialist symbols in videos (=the red rose), pictures related to the Francoist regime (militaries and priests), a video shows images of festivities before the coup (=visual rhetoric), a video shows images of Republican soldiers as regular workers (=visual rhetoric), pictures in which Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler are together (=visual rhetoric), shaved women (=visual rhetoric). Vocabulary The butcher of Badajoz or Juan 'the wolf' (= a Francoist general), our comrade, the women in black, dignity, genocide, murders, murdered and reprisals, the military coup, civil cemetery (=as opposed to catholic cemetery), wrongful death, military rebels, military uprising, a regime of terror was established, cleansing operation orchestrated... Grammar "Murdered as … a result of the military coup" (= causality), "our families people instilled in us affection for your people and respect for your ideas (= our and your, two different sides and subjects)", "two thousand Riojans were murdered by other Riojans" (=Republicans are the passive subject), "the rebel army...caused a civil war" (=Francoists are the active subject). Rhetoric “Because the patronage of a genocide is contrary to the ethical and moral values that should be propagated in a school” (=political meeting style), “both male and female members” (=aim at gender integration), “a Francoist name (for a school) is illegal” (= legalism claim), “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, “those dead whom we can almost touch..., here we are today, in this land that your mothers, wives, and daughters embraced and stepped on to make it theirs as well..., they made ours this land that was yours by blood..., still lying in gutters and mass graves..., they will welcome in their lap the bodies of two thousand Riojans” (=emotional style), “women dressed in black and dignity” (=metaphor), “whose main and only crime was to believe in a better world and vote” (=subtle irony), “the repressive power was sure that its ration of annihilation and extermination was not finished” (=hyperbole), “the brave cowardice” (=paradox) Political stances There are also acknowledgments of the right-wing town hall assistance, there is an expressed desire to forge a better future by reforging the present, one of the purposes is the removal Francoist symbols, there is an educational

(Web)site of memory: Asociación La Barranca Accessed on April 10th, 2021 purpose and also reconciliation (=building bridges), the ultimate goal is apparently to proclaim the Republic, "The promotion of individual freedoms and rights (=our good things) must always prevail against their enemies and their persecutors (=their bad things)", "names that no one should be ashamed of (=their bad things), names that can and should be remembered with pride (=our good things)", "an example of the struggle for women's equality, ...a symbol of reconciliation between Spaniards after the dictatorship (=our good people)", goodwill people (=our good people), you were murdered (=their wrongdoing) for defending freedom and democracy (=our right doing), our families instilled into us affection (=our good things), there was also crimes perpetrated by the Republican side (=our wrongdoing) but quickly corrected by the lawful government (=our right doing), the violence was far beyond necessity (=their wrongdoing). Social networks and algorithm manipulation On YouTube, contents are showed with suggestions to far-right party Vox’s videos.

(Web)site of memory: Exhumación de Valdenoceda Accessed on April 18th, 2021

General features The writer speaks in the first person (mainly plural). Contents are diverse (podcasts, videos, pictures, poems...). The webpage sits on the same story throughout many articles. There is a list of victims. Multimodality Black background with striking pictures that resemble the Nazi Holocaust (=visual rhetoric), a bucolic video of the old ruined factory with an iron fence surrounded by impressive landscapes, there are photographs and drawings on which people suffer, pictures with skeletons and coffins, older people honoring their dead, emotive poems (= symbolism, life as opposed of suffering), pictures of one far-left party Podemos' representative, the Republican flag (mainly) but also regional flags which denotes a political standpoint, but never the official Spanish flag, affective testimonies appealing to emotion, the Republic’s flag is always covering the coffins, heartbreaking pictures and testimonies of people receiving human remains. Vocabulary Assassinated, reprisal, dignity, justice, reparation, truth, memory, a post-war extermination camp, victims of human rights violations, and crimes against humanity, consumption and hunger in the infamous prison, murdered with premeditation and treachery by the victors, concentration camp, the victors were cruel to the defeated, coup plotters, Franco's fascist regime, extermination mission, from stupidity, kidnapping at night, to kill all the Republicans and to be cruel to their families and their property… Grammar "A girl saw her father taken away" (=Republicans are the passive subject). Truth-claims Some articles are more academic with scientific terms. There is omnipresent parallelism with the Nazi Holocaust

(Web)site of memory: Exhumación de Valdenoceda Accessed on April 18th, 2021

hinting at similarities throughout the whole text. Rhetoric "Given the deafness of the previous Government, that of M. Rajoy, who even denied" (=irony), "extermination prison where prisoners starved", "but remember the moral duty that the Government has towards thousands of disappeared" (=appeal to ethics), "Marta del Castillo, the Yak-42 accident victims had another treatment" (=victimhood), topics of the late and post-Franco manual (=leftish rhetoric), "Franco's impunity in Spain is well known" (=victimhood), "a broth seasoned with a single bean ... the only dish of the day… the bean was always rotten" (=hyperbole), "He founded his new life on love for his wife" (=superior behavior), "the young men bark..." (=bestialization), "...It was arranged that anyone who wishes to exhume the corpse of one of his relatives murdered by the Marxist horde, to be buried in the cemetery, could request it within a period of six months" (=citing Francoist rhetoric). Political stances There are also acknowledgments of the Church assistance and the people of Valdenoceda, there is a reconciliation statement: "your understanding, your tolerance, and your testimony always accompany us so that everything that happened never happens again", "due to the continuous irregularities that occurred there and the high mortality" (=their wrongdoing), "any bad behavior (not raising your arm to sing the ‘Cara al Sol" (=their cruelty), "summary judgments against us" (=their wrongdoing), "he founded his new life on love for his wife" (=our good things), "unfortunately, a part of our society sadly affirms that this work 'opens wounds' (=wrongness of others) Social networks and algorithm manipulation There are links to social networks whose sites are much more politically slanted to the left (mainly Twitter – 2,649 followers - wherein there are many contents related to left-wing parties, revisionism, a fascist demonstration, Donald Trump and far-right party VOX).

(Web)site of memory: Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH) Accessed on April 19th, 2021

General features The writer speaks in the first person (mainly plural). Journal and story-telling styles. Images and textures are more elaborated. Contents about crimes and exhumations are also very elaborated. Contents look quite professional. Contents related to 'Valle de los Caídos' are frequent. There is a search engine very useful. The aim of the association is to recover the victims' remains, give them back to the families, and divulge their findings... Multimodality The Republican colors are always present, an older man stares at us accusingly behind the text, videos from elderly people who receive their relatives' remains, ARMH twits Vox back, emotive videos, emotional images from exhumations and their relatives' testimonies. Vocabulary Concentration camp, phalangist, assassinated whose remains have been “kidnapped”, he was brutally murdered, killed by a group of Phalangist gunmen, always with the same pattern: kidnapping-murder-disappearance…

(Web)site of memory: Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH) Accessed on April 19th, 2021

Grammar "A woman from La Bañeza, León, killed by a group of phalangists" (=Republicans are the passive subject), "The Benedictine monks who control the Valley of the Fallen" (=active subject) ... Truth-claims There are hints at parallelism with Mauthausen. Rhetoric "The friars of the Valley of the Fallen have become squatters" (=paradox), journal style, "the friars... defend the persistence of the Valley of the Fallen as a “monument to reconciliation” (=irony), "throughout the entire process, there will be permanent assistance from forensic experts for technical and legal advice" (=legal rhetoric aiming at legitimacy), "the mausoleum built for the greater honor and glory of the crusaders" (=Francoist rhetoric mockery), "people who see a clear abandonment of the functions of the different governments that Spain has had" (=legal style), "They shot him dead ... and left him in a gutter" (=aiming at raising emotive feelings)… Political stances "The remains were buried ... in a pantheon built exclusively for this purpose in the civil area of the cemetery" (= Republican laicism), "I don't want revenge...don't repeat that any more" (=our good feelings), "to promote the elaboration of the new official discourse that ends the ideological equalization of the transition, which equated the opposition resistance to Francoism with the most recalcitrant reactionaries who supported the old regime" (=the ultimate political goal, to win the war between discourses), "The marking of all public or private works built by political prisoners, as well as the provision of compensation for survivors, to which all private companies that were enriched by forced labor should contribute" (=anticapitalism), "Recover the memory and give the place they deserve in history to all those who fought for freedom and democracy" (= our fair struggle). "by crystal-clear" (=our good things). Social networks and algorithm manipulation They are very active on social networks (Facebook in English looking for international recognition, 39,000 followers on Twitter, Flickr, YouTube channel, there is a blog), it is interesting to see - on YouTube - how far-right videos appear when clicking a video (algorithm?).

(Web)site of memory: Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (FNFF) Accessed on April 23rd, 2021

General features The writer speaks in the first person (singular and plural) or third person (the association). The audience is the third person (Spanish polite and respectful style). Journal style with opinion articles. High-quality design (simple and sober). There is a useful search engine. The association is aimed at divulging the social, economic, and military achievements of general Franco, and also the fight against the misnamed Law of Historical Memory. They are very active in the media (TV and traditional press). Many contents are highly politicized. Some contents are shared with the "Asociación para la Defensa del Valle de los Caídos". Many articles are related to the Valley (more than 50 articles).

(Web)site of memory: Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (FNFF) Accessed on April 23rd, 2021

Multimodality The webpage’s symbol is Franco's coat of arms. LONG LIVE SPAIN, GO SPAIN Francoist claims. Vocabulary The losers of the civil war, yes, those defeated by Franco, first in war and then in peace…, patriot, liberation war, glorious Unit of Catalan fighters, shortly before the Spanish Liberation Crusade, he told those who martyred him, the desecration of Franco's grave, the people rose, the situation was one of absolute anarchy, the exhumation of the Generalissimo, we encourage all our partners and supporters to go to the Valley of the Fallen, historical memory law that disunites, and confronts the Spaniards, black legend against the Valley of the Fallen, the essences of our country, the glorious annals of Spain, hatred, sectarianism and totalitarianism, “fidex Ibérica”, “devotio”, take an oath, iconoclastic and anticlerical fury... Grammar "They do not know what suffering means…" (third person, otherness for the rivals), "do not play with religious feelings" (= imperative threatening style), "the outrage is led by descendants of those who murdered them" (Republican criminals are the active subject) … Truth-claims There is a certain obsession with debunking lies related to the Valley of the Fallen and enhancing its grandeur. There are supportive interviews with international scholars. Some sentences: "either everything turns out to be an absurdity or the Supreme Court will correct its serious mistake" (=claiming for truth), "to stand next to the truth, human rights and the essence, unity and integrity of Spain against those who implanted Marxism, under the Second Republic after a clamorous electoral surge, terror, assassinations, the burning of churches, threats and hatred of those who did not think like Stalin, their referent." (=truth-claim), "advantages obtained by prisoners of war (in the Valley of Fallen) who requested their transfer to the Site (= truth-claim), "the so-called 'slave' labor" (=raising doubts), "during the construction of the cross 'many prisoners died.' Once again, FALSE" (=claiming truth). Rhetoric "And his friend the "Marqués de Galapagar" (=irony), "crusade, liberation war…" (=Francoist rhetoric), he did not last long in the Protectorate (=Morocco), escaped being shot by the reds (=derogatory), "when the hunting of religious and secular Catholics was the preferred sport of communists, socialists and anarchists" (=metaphor communism=wild behavior), "17 years have passed since that savagery of Taliban (the fallen Buddhas) and, today, ... we are seeing how one after another crosses are demolished" (=comparison between extreme ideologies), "we touch the bottom of Marxist fundamentalism" (=hyperbole), "some Spaniards who do not want to be Spanish" (=paradox), “to make room for the prodigious Basilica that today houses, Francisco Franco Bahamonde has inspired such prodigious works" (=Francoist rhetoric), "It seems incredible that these are their priorities in view of the tragedy that we are living" (=superior ethics), the remains of the undefeated caudillo (=Francoist rhetoric). Political stances "Values such as those of the defense of the unity of Spain, of the family, of our Christian traditions, of just social progress and, of course, of harmony among Spaniards" (=our values are the only good things), "Pacts that the current socialist, communist and separatist leaders have broken" (=their ill political stances), "was part of an EXECUTION PLATOON" (=their bad things), "They behaved as brave, ... all of them looked towards us with impressive serenity" (=our brave soldiers), "the Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed, after fraudulent elections"

(Web)site of memory: Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (FNFF) Accessed on April 23rd, 2021

(=their illegitimacy), "received the waters of baptism" (=religious stance), "the communists have never forgiven that Franco, at the head of the rebel army, defeated them" (=our victors), "today is celebrated the day of San Fermín ... he suffered martyrdom after baptizing thousands of people" (=religious stance), "that cunningly hid from his companions" (=their wrongdoing), "when Franco returns to the Valley of the Fallen to rest next to the bones of the other contenders, all united under the Cross of Christ, our Lord" (=religion-nation-Francoist right values), "the redemption of penalties for work was a clear advantage for the postwar Spanish prison population" (=our right doing), "the truth only has one way" (=our legitimate right), "when we see crosses with fury fall down" (=their bad things), "seeking to reopen the wounds of war" (=their ill intentions), "to all who fell in our Crusade, regardless of the field in which they fought" (our Christian right doing), "he has defended with gallantry and pious righteousness" (=our good things), "they don't give a damn about the unity of Spain, abortion, gender ideology or the Law of Historical Lie..." (=extremism). Social networks and algorithm manipulation Articles can be shared through social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp). Links to Facebook (contents in Spanish and English), Twitter (11,300 followers), and YouTube with links to far-right interviews. The Association has opened a Telegram channel (=secrecy?).

(Web)site of memory: Valle de los Caídos Accessed on April 25th, 2021

General features The webpage is run by the Benedictine Abbey in charge of the Site. The general appearance is quite professional. There is a clear message on the front page "Monument to reconciliation". There are religious contents such as mass timetables and sermons, the history of the Abbey, the Basilica and the choir. WordPress style. Children choir promotional video in the first person (plural). There is a complete omission of Franco and Primo de Rivera throughout the text. Multimodality There are several educational videos (the children’s choir). The beginning of the promotional video is confusing (cartoons depicting a boy and a girl?). The coat of arms seems to include the Francoist coat of arms. Truth-claims "The construction works mainly involved free workers and a smaller, albeit significant, percentage of prisoners, these between 1942 and 1950, under the regime of redemption of sentences" (= truth claim), "They were applied by all the fallen of the Spanish War of 1936-1939, both on the national side and the Republican side, and just as every day a Mass is offered for all of them (national and Republican)" (=reiteration, claiming for impartiality). Rhetoric Mainly religious rhetoric. Political stances

(Web)site of memory: Valle de los Caídos Accessed on April 25th, 2021

"As some Protestant and Catholic theologians infected by the virus of rationalism have claimed and still claim to teach" (=religious stance, we are even more right than other Catholics), "the liturgy is offered for the peace and reconciliation of Spain" (=political stance), "the remains of more than 50 blessed martyrs in the 1936 war rest" (=reminder of martyrdom in the Civil war), "with the need to heal wounds, put down antagonisms and meet again together" (=our good purposes), "there is no separation by sides, but they are intermingled" (=our goodwill). Social networks and algorithm manipulation The Abbey s present on social networks, Twitter (11,700 followers) and Facebook, on the latter, some links to far- right sites appear as related pages.

(Web)site of memory: Asociación para la Defensa del Valle de los Caídos (ADVC) Accessed on April 22nd, 2021 General features The writer speaks in the first person (mainly plural) and third person (the association). Blogging style looking for sympathy. There is a virtual shop (books, keyrings, t-shirts...). In general terms, the writing style is more aggressive and, sometimes, very hostile towards leftish parties. Some articles hint at institutional corruption. Multimodality The Spanish flag is the main symbol. The background is a mural with characters from Spanish history (=nationalism). Vocabulary The Kingdom of Spain, the history of Christianity, signed by the prestigious coroner, the campaign orchestrated by the government, attempted desecration of the tombs of the Valley of the Fallen… Grammar "The two anarchists died" (=Republicans are the active subject) Truth-claims Some sentences: "And that presuppose that they are" (=raising doubts), "they were allegedly shot by national troops" (=raising doubts), "such approval supposes discrimination and persecution for opinion and ideological reasons that are unbearable for the opposing citizenry" (=truth ownership), "the Vatican states that it ‘does not oppose the exhumation’, rather than ‘the Vatican supports the exhumation’ THIS IS FALSE" (=truth claim), "In the Valley of the Fallen there was no forced labor, nor was Cuelgamuros a concentration camp. The prisoners of the Valley requested to go there" (=truth claim). Rhetoric "Whose relatives intend to recover his remains"(=hinting criticism), "memorialist association'' (=derogatory), "once again we will be generous and we will believe, just for a moment" (=irony), "defense of the Valley of the Fallen will resort to as many judicial bodies as necessary" (=threatening legal statement", "the history of Christianity is a history of persecution, from that of Diocletian to that which our brothers in the Faith are suffering today in many of the Muslim majority countries." (=victimhood), "Christians suffered one of the biggest and bloodiest persecutions in history at the hands of a dark coalition of socialists, communists and anarchists" (=national catholic Francoist

(Web)site of memory: Asociación para la Defensa del Valle de los Caídos (ADVC) Accessed on April 22nd, 2021 rhetoric), "we all implore God for his help" (=Francoist rhetoric), "a government that boasts the sign of "democratic" (=irony), "by the acting government" (=raising doubts of legitimacy), "our cause, everyone's, is a fair cause" (=legitimacy discourse), "illegitimate attack suffered by the government of DOCTOR Pedro Sánchez" (=irony)… Political stances The purpose of the association is the defense of the national monumental site, "this small group of Spaniards" (=our country), monument erected in the middle of the last century, as a symbol of reconciliation" (=our good things), "the Valley of the Fallen, forgotten in care and maintenance by all the governments of democracy and today savagely attacked from the spheres of power" (=their bad thins), "meanwhile, the religious community is seriously harassed" (=their bad thins), "they selflessly fulfill their obligation to pray for all" (=religious statement), "to all Christians in the world and to all people of good will" (=religious statement), "where a Christian burial was given to more than 30,000 deceased in the Civil War, winners and losers" (=our good things), "the socialist / communist / secessionist government of Spain has presented to Parliament" (=their ill political stances), "appeal to Christianhood" (=crusade rhetoric), "from the commitment to the truth" (=our right position), "their lack of respect, erasure or alteration, typical of the barbarians, denotes the supreme audacity of Marxist indoctrinating thought" (their wrong political position), "for the government there seem to be "first" deaths and "second" deaths" (=their bad things), "twisting parliamentary procedures and illegitimately using legal tools of political power is the deep ideological sectarianism and the spirit of revenge against people already deceased" (=their very wrong doing), "42,000 British people died as a result of the bombs dropped by the Nazi aviation, ..., and yet it is estimated that in Germany more than 500,000 civilians died" (=our not that bad things in comparison with other very bad things).

Social networks and algorithm manipulation It is not allowed to leave comments. Articles can be shared through social networks (Facebook and Twitter). A private Facebook group (8,800 members) whose heading is a statue of John the Evangelist and his Eagle. Links to Twitter and YouTube do not work properly. Some videos about the educational role of the Valley’s school.

APPENDIX 2 Interviews

Interview 1: Civil cemetery of La Barranca (La Rioja). April 15th, 2021.

Mr. Ricardo Blanco Nestares, Mr. Pedro Navarro Bretón and, Mr. Francisco Marín Yécora, President and members of the “La Barranca” Association for the Preservation of Historical Memory in La Rioja. Grandsons and grandnephew of victims of the Civil War in La Rioja. All of them are already retired, Ricardo worked as a truck driver, Pablo as a commercial agent, and Francisco as a master craftsman.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourselves? 2. Tell me something about the Association, which its history is, its purpose…? 3. It seems that the right-wing city council has supported theAssociation and, on the (web)page, you acknowledge that, is that sincere? 4. To become a member of the Association, theoretically, I need the support of two members…, can I become a member even if support the Popular Party (right-wing), because my grandfather died on the Francoist side? 5. If my grandfather had been found buried in a gutter, by mistake, would he have a place in the cemetery? 6. Why is not the current Spanish flag displayed? 7. If democracy has already been achieved in Spain, what is your ultimate goal? 8. In the images on the webpage, there are mainly older people, are you losing ties with the next generation? 9. Is La Barranca the best instrument to preserve memory? 10. Are you afraid that someone takes over La Barranca for political purposes?

Interview 2: Villagonzalo Pedernales (Burgos). April 24th, 2021.

Mrs. María Eugenia Yagüe Martínez del Campo, President of the Yagüe Foundation and Maid of Honor of the Francisco Franco National Foundation. She is the daughter of Francoist general Juan Yagüe y Blanco, and also, she is the daughter, granddaughter, and great- granddaughter of Spanish ministers. She was also the principal of the ‘General Yagüe’ school and the first councilwoman of Burgos City Council. She has published a picture book in defense of her father’s memory.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? 3. My thesis focus on the so-called Sites of Memory, such as ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, which is your opinion about their role? 4. Do you agree with the exhumation of Franco? 5. And what about changing the name of your father’s birthplace, ‘San Leonardo de Yagüe’, named after him? 6. What do you think about the current debate including words such as torturers, crusades?

Interview 3: Online via Zoom. April 27th, 2021.

Mr. Emilio Silva Barrera, President of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH). Sociologist and journalist, he is the grandson of a Republican victim who disappeared during the Civil War. He is also one of the founders of the ARMH, the main organization searching for graves of people assassinated as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Francoist dictatorship. He has published several works covering the topic.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? 3. From your point of view, which role are Sites of Memory such as La Barranca and Valdenoceda playing? 4. And the role of ‘El Valle de los Caídos? 5. What is necessary to re-significate the Site and, as the new Memory law states, to transform ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ into a space for educational purposes? 6. Are Jose Antonio’s remains entitled to stay in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’? 7. Is it necessary to knock down the cross? And will you expel the monks? 8. In La Barranca, the people in charge told me that they will not allow extremists to take over the Site but, is that happening in other Sites?

Interview 4: Online via Zoom. April 28th, 2021.

Mr. José María Gonzalez Díaz-Medino, President of the Association of Valdenoceda’s Relatives of Victims. He is the grandson of a former convict dead in Valdenoceda, and runs, along with his wife, a family company for PPE distribution.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? 3. My thesis focus on the so-called Sites of Memory, such as ‘Valdenoceda’, which is your opinion about their role in memory construction? 4. On the (web)site there are hints at similarities between Valdenoceda and the Nazi Holocaust, is not that a too extreme comparison? 5. Are you afraid that someone takes over Valdenoceda for electoral purposes? 6. Are Jose Antonio’s remains entitled to stay in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’? 7. Which is your ultimate goal, democracy or the Republic? 8. Why is not the current Spanish flag displayed? 9. Have you planned anything to promote Valdenoceda as an educational space?

Interview 5: Online via Zoom. April 29th, 2021.

Mr. Emilio de Miguel Moreno, Secretary of the Francisco Franco National Foundation. Retired lawyer. He is also a former politician who has taken place in political parties such as the Party of National Action.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about your Foundation, which are its objectives? 3. I would like to focus on ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, what does it mean for you? 4. Is it possible to become a member of your association without being a Catholic? 5. Do you agree with the exhumation of Franco? What did that mean for you? 6. And what about Jose Antonio? Will his remains be exhumed? 7. Do you think that the term ‘crusade’ is appropriate to define the Civil War? 8. If ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ Site was constructed to achieve national reconciliation, which are the right measures to ensure long-lasting reconciliation?

Interview 6: Online via Zoom. April 30th, 2021.

Ph.D. Santiago Cantera Montenegro, Prior of the ‘Holy Cross of El Valle de los Caídos’ Abbey. Graduated in Geography and History, holds a doctorate in History, and was a former professor at University CEU San Pablo. He was a former candidate for the Spanish and European parliament. He showed a firm opposition to the exhumation of Francisco Franco. He has also published several works addressing Spanish society and history.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about the Benedictine Congregation, which are its objectives? 3. I would like to focus on ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, I have read on the Abbey’s website that is a monument to reconciliation, but how does the Site contribute to reconciliation? 4. Are able to coexist the Republican and Francoist versions of history on the Site? 5. Why did you oppose Franco’s exhumation? 6. And what about Jose Antonio? Should his remains stay in a privileged place? 7. Which measures could be adopted to ensure that the Site becomes a real monument to reconciliation? Would be possible to allow the victims’ relatives to participate in the management of the Site? 8. And what about atheist victims, should they remain in a Catholic Site? 9. How is the current political situation affecting national reconciliation?

Interview 7: Online via Zoom. April 30th, 2021.

Mr. Pablo Linares Clemente, President of the Association for the Defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’. He is the grandson of a former convict who participated in the construction of the Valley of the Fallen. He runs his own IT business and has published several books focused on the values and defense of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’. He has built up a huge archive centered on the history of the Site.

Questionnaire:

1. Could you tell me something about yourself? 2. Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? 3. In your view, which is the meaning of ‘El Valle de los Caídos’? 4. Regarding reconciliation, is the Site achieving its purpose?

5. Are able to coexist the Republican and Francoist versions of history on the Site? Which could be done, on the Site, to achieve real reconciliation? 6. What do you think about Franco’s exhumation? And what about Jose Antonio? Would he remain in ‘El Valle’? 7. And what about atheist victims, should remain in a Catholic Site? 8. Do you think that the usage of terms like ‘crusade’, present on your website, contributes to national reconciliation?

Interview 8: Online via Zoom. Mai 11th, 2021.

Mr. Baltasar Garzón Real is a former judge of the Spanish National Court. He was the examining magistrate of the central court investigating the most important criminal cases in Spain, including terrorism, organized crime, and money laundering. In 1998, Garzón issued an international warrant against Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, for the alleged deaths and torture of Spanish citizens. In 2008, Garzón opened an inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Francoist government during the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship. He has been awarded several prizes and worked as a legal adviser at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He currently leads a specialized legal cabinet specialized in human rights at international level.

Questionnaire:

1. Do you think that is possible to exhume the victims who are in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ taking into account technical difficulties? 2. What do you think about Franco’s exhumation? And what about Jose Antonio? Should he remain in ‘El Valle’? 3. Don’t you think that all these things are incrementing political tension? 4. In your view, which can be done on ‘El Valle’ Site to achieve reconciliation? 5. Regarding memory and education, don’t you fear political manipulation?

APPENDIX 3 Extracts of the Interviews

Extract 1 - (La Barranca, April 15th, 2021) Q: If my grandfather had been found buried in a gutter, by mistake, would he have a place in the cemetery? A: A communist is to answer…, all the dead are my dead, all the dead from that time are badly dead, but they are mine, I have nothing against any dead ..., I am sure that there are right-wing people here ...

Extract 2 - (La Barranca, April 15th, 2021) Q: In the images on the webpage, there are mainly older people, are you losing ties with the next generation? A: There is a very important resurgence at this time, there is awareness, there are those who shy away, as always, but there is an important part of the youth that is taking sides. Really, because of the political exacerbation at the national level, let me explain, that is, the kids have taken sides ..., But it is true that the social climate that exists, that everyone is totally opposed and very extreme, ... We are precisely the three of us who run the courses here, and the first thing said to all the students who come here, boys and girls of 15 years, is respect for the ideas of others, for their religious concepts, that is, respect above all else, do you understand? that this will never happen again, ... here, we do not talk about politics, we do not speak to them on behalf of any political party...

Extract 3 - (La Barranca, April 15th, 2021) Q: Are you afraid that someone takes over La Barranca for political purposes? A: We won't allow that!, we won't allow that!

Extract 4 - (Mª Eugenia Yagüe, April 24th, 2021) Q: My thesis focus on the so-called Sites of Memory, such as ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, which is your opinion about their role? A: The Valley of the Fallen is a total act of reconciliation, but even if it was not… it is an impressive and artistic monument, so we all have to do reconciliation, in my view, it is an impressive work of art, yesterday, they spoke about Napoleon in a program, there is no one greater dictator than Napoleon, and he is in ‘Les Invalides’, and France uses that perfectly, they do not destroy that under any circumstances, what is happening with Podemos now, all this is raising hatred that is also a lie ...

Extract 5 - (Emilio Silva Barrera, April 27th, 2021) Q: Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? A: ... Today, in Córdoba's newspaper, there is a news item that tells how the administrations will spend 1,400,000 euros on exhumations, that the headline and the photos are of the Vice President of the Government, of the Provincial Council, of someone from the Board, of Someone from the University, and I am outraged by that, firstly because the head and everything that the Government is communicating has to do with money and that is objectifying the victims. We are not talking about the problem of the victims, we are not talking about crimes, we are not talking about criminals, I cannot find headlines where money is not simply talked about, and the photos are not the victims either, there are the administrations ... For me, it is shameful that people talk about exhuming graves as if they were talking about hiring

pipelines, communication is that sad and that is defining lots of things about memory policies in Spain, and all those headlines mean for us and for the victims to create that idea that we are lining up with the Government ...

Extract 6 - (Emilio Silva Barrera, April 27th, 2021) Q: What role is ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ playing as a Site of Memory? A: ... a week after exhuming my grandfather, when I was returning to Madrid at night, I suddenly saw ‘El Valle de los Caídos' illuminated and it hurt because, back then, it was not illuminated due to the 33,000 dead that were inside and that are still inside, it was illuminated because of the Head of State of all the dead that were in ‘El Valle’. So, I wrote a letter to El País, the newspaper, saying that we have just removed 13 civilians from a gutter and that my grandfather's only obsession was that his town had a public and secular school ... I came from exhuming 13 civilians from a gutter where they have been, after 25 years of democracy, and I find the Cross, and the Site where the dictator is buried as if it belonged to democratic ecstasy... memory is a fight for the meaning and if to you, Francoism does not mean violation of human rights, we cannot speak ..., the exhumation of my grandfather changed my look, that is, it changed the meaning of ‘El Valle de los Caídos ' to me when I saw my grandfather's grave and the relatives by the graves telling stories of what they had experienced and suddenly, I see these civilians who are buried in a gutter and the dictator in a mausoleum paid with public funds ...

Extract 7 - (José María González, April 28th, 2021) Q: Why is not the current Spanish flag displayed? A: I understand that these people we are honoring were detained, imprisoned, for defending the tricolor ..., if they died, it was for defending that flag, they died or were killed, but they did it to defend that flag, in their belief, it was the flag that represented their country at that time, so we give the remains to someone and let them be the ones to take away the Republican flag ..., in the past, on the plaques of the churches, they praised the Francoists who died for Spain, the OTHERS did not die for Spain? Each one defended the Spain in which they believed, I understand that the fairest thing is that, at the door of the Church or the door of the Town Hall, we should put the names of the ones who are supposed to have died for Spain, but we should also have to put the names of the others, who also died for Spain, the Spain in which they believed ...

Extract 7 - (Emilio de Miguel, April 29th, 2021) Q: Do you agree with the exhumation of Franco? What did that mean for you? A: ... the dead must be left alone, I think he should have stayed at ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, for several reasons, first, because he was already there, secondly, he was a representative of a part of Spain, ... I think that it had been the most civilized thing, the atrocities that this Government is doing are not common in Western civilized countries, exhuming or desecrating Franco's grave against the will of the family and against the opinion of half Spain, about the other half Spain, I don't know, but the Spain represented by Franco agreed that he should have remained there, ... the Government, at that time, decided to bury him there to avoid conflicts, he was more or less forgotten and 40 years had passed without any problem, only when this campaign to remove history and the unpleasant and bitter memories of one side and the other one, then it seemed that this was a problem, and everything has violated the current legislation ..., the law has been twisted by part of this Government and also the international agreements with the Holy See, which has decided to look the other way ...

Extract 8 - (Santiago Cantera, April 30th, 2021) Q: Are the Republican and Francoist versions of history able to coexist on the Site? A: … It is evident that there are some elements that could be born flawed from their origin, from an objective point of view because they are born within a regime, and that can make some things fall more on one side than the other, on the winning side. In that sense, it is where you can find flawed elements from their origin. Today, we find ourselves in the opposite situation, flaws occur from the opposite side. From our perspective as Benedictines, we try to live this and we understand reconciliation from a theological conception, that is, we understand reconciliation first as the reconciliation that Christ has achieved between men and God, because by dying on the cross he has reconciled us with God, from whom we were separated by sin, and has restored divine friendship to us, and even more, he has given us to be made children of God ...

Extract 9 - (Santiago Cantera, April 30th, 2021) Q: Why did you oppose Franco’s exhumation? A: ... we were opposed because the family was opposed, if the family had accepted, we would have accepted, we were custodians of Francisco Franco's remains and not owners of his body, we understood from a legal, canonical and moral point of view that the remains of a deceased buried in a Church, whether he was the Head of State or was the last beggar in Spain, without the consent of the family and also against the opinion of the family, it is not legitimate to exhume these remains ... to force a situation that violated the rights of the ecclesiastical authority over a religious temple, which violated an international agreement between the Church and the State ..., if the family had agreed to remove the remains we would have no reason to oppose, whether it was called Francisco Franco as if his name was Pepito or as if he were a person from the other side ... The Vatican adopted a diplomatic position in which it recognized the rights of the family and called for an understanding between the family and the State because if there was something else, it escapes me. If it is true that there were two corrections made by the Holy See from the Secretariat of State, which is very atypical ...

Extract 10 - (Santiago Cantera, April 30th, 2021) Q: And what about Jose Antonio? Should his remains stay in a privileged place? A: ... this democratic memory bill is being delayed due to reports, the Prosecution Ministry has given a vote where it has been positive for a vote that has been that of the General Attorney, but others are pending, for example that of the General Council of the Judiciary has asked for an extension, and is being delayed a lot due to the legal difficulties that could pose and from a political reaction, of social reaction etc., since reports have been requested and it has been delayed ... In the bill, it was quite clear that the remains of José Antonio Primo de Rivera will not occupy a prominent place, but having died in the war, he had the right to be in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’, I do not know what will be done in the end, it is a topic that has been talked about for years, I often thought that the ideal thing is that, instead of going around with exhumations, stirring the dead, if there had been a desire from the families, it would have been better to have brought two representative characters of the Republican side like ...

Extract 11 - (Santiago Cantera, April 30th, 2021) Q: Which measures could be adopted to ensure that the Site becomes a real monument to reconciliation? Would be possible to allow the victims’ relatives to participate in the management of the Site?

A: ... If all the associations had an interest in family members instead of other interests with a political, ideological background, which is often what there is, or even economic, that often beats behind this visceral situation that is unfortunately lived today ...

Extract 12 - (Santiago Cantera, April 30th, 2021) Q: How is the current political situation affecting national reconciliation? A: ... I see the old people who lived through the war or the postwar period more sensibly than the grandchildren or great-grandchildren who have not experienced that, and they are the ones who are creating confrontations, I believe that many of those who lived through it, wanted to turn the page ... At the political level, reconciliation was not achieved, as there are certain elements that reflect the idea of the winner, but at the social level, a large part of Spanish society, in the same 40s, wanted to turn the page ..., I also know cases of very beautiful mixed marriages ... Well, on a political level, there was a desire not to stir things up from the war much more, but today the vision of the defeated Republican side is stronger, which is the one that is imposing itself, demonizing the opposite side, a bit what was done in Franco's time and everything has changed to the opposite side, without looking objectively at the things from one or the other side. I think so, indeed all this is overexciting things, and of course, it provokes reactions ..., in addition to all the health problems and the economic and social crisis ..., the social outbreak that can occur as soon as the levels of unemployment and ...

Extract 13 - (Pablo Linares, April 30th, 2021) Q: Tell me something about your Association, which are its objectives? A: The Association was born before the harassment by the Government of Rodríguez Zapatero against the Valley, precisely by appealing to the documentation that we already had, we are talking about 2009, which dismantled the myths and legends, that kind of black legend against the Valley. We have always had the intention, even the need, to make this documentation known because it seemed to us extraordinarily categorical in defense of the Valley itself. When we started this work, the closure that we all know began, first of worship, then tourism, then worship and tourism, and due to the harassment, that I comment, the goals of the Association were targeted at trying to oppose what, we thought, was not according to law, or at least contrary to logic ... We have traveled throughout Spain in conferences, round tables, etc. ... On the other hand, it is solidly supported by fairly powerful and qualified documentation ...

Extract 14 - (Pablo Linares, April 30th, 2021) Q: Regarding reconciliation, is the Site achieving its purpose? A: … there is hatred for the largest Cross in Christendom, which on clear days can be seen more than 60 km away and whose single sight can repel many people, this I know is a bit extreme…, The latest events suffered because of the monumental complex of the Valley of the Fallen they do not help peace and reconciliation ...

Extract 15 - (Baltasar Garzón, May 11th, 2021) Q: Do you think that is possible to exhume the victims who are in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ taking into account technical difficulties? A: The right to the truth, to memory, to the guarantee of non-repetition is a fundamental right recognized by the United Nations, it is a right to which all of us are entitled and the way in which it has to be executed is something else, if not possible, it will be necessary to establish alternative legal mechanisms of reparation..., the remains of the victims in ‘El Valle’ were deposited there without consent of any kind, the only ones who gave their consent and was the

only one who had no right to be there, the Dictator himself ..., and we start from the basis that victims and perpetrators cannot be together because it is a re-victimization ..., the right to memory, to the truth, to justice, there is no maximum time that justifies oblivion, I insist , it is a right of the victims and, what the State has to do is promote the necessary mechanisms so that this right is materialized, or alternatively that there is a reparation even if it is symbolic ...

Extract 16 - (Baltasar Garzón, May 11th, 2021) Q: And what about Jose Antonio? Should he remain in ‘El Valle’? A: … It is evident that he cannot be in ‘El Valle de los Caídos’ since it becomes a site of memory, the idea is that victims and perpetrators cannot share a place of homage if there has not been a comprehensive agreement from all sides ..., reconciliation is a subjective act like forgiveness, or like forgetting, it is something that cannot be imposed by a decree ...