“Adapt or Die”

Media, mortality and necro-technologies: Eulogies for dead media

“…Funeral directors are, in contrast, overwhelmingly conservative with a closed-circle wariness of outside actors. Efforts at change, innovation or, even worse, disruption are often met with resistance or outright rejection within the death care sector at large (Van Ryn et al, 2018, 2019). Innovators address an industry that is historically staunchly conservative, characterised by dynasty-style funeral homes reliant on their good community standing and thus deeply sceptical of new services or technologies that might cause offence (McIlwain, 2005).…”

“…In contrast to adopting a sensitive cultural approach, innovators actively promoting anxieties about the future of the industry, while also borrowing from broader ideologies of technology innovation and the need to ‘adapt or die’ to the ‘disruptive’ potentials of new media, which already threaten to circumvent the traditional gate-keeping function of the funeral industry (Van Ryn et al, 2019). With the rise of funeral home comparison sites, DIY funeral guides and new commemorative technologies, there is a sense that the Internet is disrupting and reconfiguring the traditional intermediary relationship funeral directors have with their clientele.…”

“…Members of this industry regularly come together at conventions to chart the future of death care. Conventions are important spaces for performing and promoting innovation in the industry (Van Ryn et al, 2019). They not only showcase boundary-pushing products and services but also become a site of friction where ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’ rub up against one another.…”

“…They could reasonably be located on the steep upwards incline of Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, where 'inflated expectations' for performance and revolution are high, but the reality of disillusionment and the potential of productivity remain in the distance (Fenn and Blosch, 2018). Revolutionary claims for necro-technologies are spread by self-identified industry disruptors and evangelists, such as DISRUPT Media, who promote their social media consulting, management and marketing services to the industry with both damning diagnoses of mainstream funeral operators and advice for gaining sustained competitive advantage with digital media strategies (Van Ryn et al, 2019).…”