Bereavement, Gender, and Cyberspace: A Content Analysis of Parents' Memorials to Their Children

Abstract

The study investigated how two distinct perspectives apply to the role of gender in parents' memorials on The Compassionate Friends (TCF) electronic bulletin board; cyberspace as merely a mirror of societal gendered patterns of bereavement, and cyberspace as a medium or context in which societal gendered patterns of bereavement are neutralized. Data were evaluated to determine to what extent gender differences exist concerning instrumental versus intuitive styles of bereavement. Analytic categories used in assessing gender differences in parental bereavement style included the following: invoking spirituality, directing messages to the deceased, artistic expressions, and special powers accorded to the deceased. With some exceptions, the findings supported the perspective emphasizing the gender neutralizing aspects of cyberspace parental bereavement for the population studied.

“Their Page is Still Up”: Social Media and Coping with Loss

“…Contrary to our hypothesis and prior research (Musambira et al, 2007), in our study grievers did not differ from non-grievers according to sociodemographic characteristics. This finding may reflect the ways in which, over the past decade, SM use has become a routine part of almost all young adults' lives.…”

How Loved Ones Express Grief After the Death of a Child by Sharing Photographs on Facebook

“…In previous work on the topic, they also describe themselves, their families, and the pain inflicted on them by the death (Aho et al, 2012). Swarthood et al (2012) and Musambira et al (2007) conclude that grieving people want to continue to analyse their personal loss and their reactions to it on websites. Loved ones also want analyse their grief and how it has changed them (Moore et al, 2017).…”

“…Participants in online discussion boards can discuss sensitive topics irrespective of their geographical location and the time of day (Convery & Cox, 2012;Moore et al, 2017). Grieving people also seek out places on the internet to post glorifying writing, to portray conversations with the deceased, and to share stories with others (Musambira et al, 2007;Irwin, 2015). Loved ones publicly show their emotions on Facebook (Irwin, 2015) and have reported experiencing less psychological distress, and also feeling psychosocial benefit that increased over time if they were members of an online grief support group (Hartig & Viola, 2016).…”

An analysis of tweets in response to the death of Michael Jackson

“…Hsieh and Shannon (2005) defined qualitative content analysis as a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns. In our work, the coding instrument characterizing a set of categories that users posted about Jackson's death was inductively constructed, consistent with work such as De Vries and Rutherford (2004) and Musambira et al (2007). Three coders were given 100 tweets to independently develop a set of categories.…”