Abstract

This study examines social media as a dual entity, both artifact and archive emphasizing the tensions between 
ephemerality, preservation, and power in digital environments. It argues that social media content, while often 
perceived as transient due to platform design, algorithmic governance, and user practices, simultaneously 
constitutes a significant repository of cultural memory and historical evidence. Drawing on interdisciplinary 
perspectives from archival studies, memory studies, and digital governance, the paper explores how social media 
content is produced, circulated, and selectively preserved across institutional and non-institutional actors. It 
highlights the infrastructural and political constraints that shape archival practices, including platform policies, 
data access restrictions, and interoperability challenges, which collectively influence what is remembered or lost. 
Through reference to key case studies of collective digital events, the study illustrates the uneven nature of 
preservation and the resulting gaps in historical records. It further interrogates the role of archives as instruments 
of power that actively shape public discourse, memory construction, and historical interpretation. Ultimately, the 
paper contends that social media archives are not neutral repositories but dynamic sites of governance, 
contestation, and cultural negotiation, with profound implications for knowledge production and collective 
remembrance in the digital age.