INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE PLATFORMIZATION OF MEMORY: “Bent El Maleh” BETWEEN THE REMEDIATION OF ORALITY, DIGITAL NEO-STORYTELLING, AND THE RECOMPOSITION OF ALGERIAN IMAGINARIES

Abstract

This article examines transformations in the transmission of Algerian intangible cultural heritage in digital environments through the case of “Bent El Maleh”. It investigates how a figure associated with popular imagination may be reconfigured as audiovisual content circulating on social platforms, and how such circulation contributes to the activation, selection and reframing of cultural memory. The analysis combines theories of orality and performance, cultural-memory studies, participatory-culture scholarship and critical approaches to platformization. Digital media are approached not merely as channels of dissemination but as sociotechnical arrangements that reshape visibility, narrative formats, appropriation practices and relations between communities, creators and audiences. The case highlights a structural tension: online circulation can expand access to heritage and enable renewed appropriation, while also encouraging decontextualization, spectacularization and the conversion of cultural symbols into attention-generating resources. The article uses “digital neo-storytelling” as an analytical category for the audiovisual reconfiguration of oral narrative forms. Because the available material does not constitute a fully documented corpus with platform-specific dates and engagement metrics, the findings are presented as interpretive propositions requiring systematic empirical testing.