FROM DIARIES TO REELS: CHILD SURVIVOR NARRATIVES, EVERYDAY LIFE, AND COMMUNICATION JUSTICE FROM BOSNIA TO GAZA

This paper analyses how young war survivors document everyday life under conflict across media forms, centring Gaza Instagram reels while comparing them to three canonical texts: Zlata’s Diary, The Bite of the Mango, and Running for My Life. It investigates how these narratives, particularly Gaza youth’s short videos, enact communication justice by countering mainstream depictions of war and victimhood. Employing trauma studies and communication justice frameworks alongside close textual and multimodal analysis (image, sound, caption) of 3-5 reels and the memoirs, the study contrasts how print texts craft retrospective coherence while digital videos capture immediate routines, fear, loss, and resilience amid bombardment. Given Gaza’s ongoing conflict and identifiable youth creators, it addresses ethical concerns of consent, safety, and avoiding extractive research. Findings show reels enable direct, unmediated witnessing unavailable in earlier memoirs, advancing debates on media futures, digital activism, and survivor agency in global discourse.

Keywords: communication justice, Gaza reels, child survivors, multimodal analysis, war testimony, everyday life