The New Forms of Mourning: Loss and Exhibition of the Death on the Internet

Abstract

According to some specialists, ceremonial funeral practices are inclined to disappear, particularly as death is an object of repression in contemporary society. However, it seems that new forms of rituals are developing through modern technologies. Virtual tombs, memorial webpages, and the celebration of death anniversaries are now common currency on the Internet. Nonetheless, the overexposure favored by the Web seems to question traditional ways of "living out" one's grief, subjecting the living and the dead to a redefinition of concepts of time and space, and entailing new forms of interaction.

Social Media Mourning

“…The deceased will get to live on, not only in mourner's memories, but also online, making SNS a tool for keeping a loved one alive on the pages of social media. Dilmac (2016) argued the Internet, and in our case SNS, has changed the way we perceive death. No longer is a person buried underground and hidden from us, but ''is now exposed to the eyes of all, eternally'' (p. 9).…”

Obituarios académicos y homenajes póstumos: legados científicos para el campo de la Cienciometría

“…En este contexto, los estudios de obituarios en redes sociales como Facebook (Brubaker; Hayes; Dourish, 2013) y Twitter (Cesare;Branstad, 2017) también encontraron un lugar, demostrando cómo el espacio de las redes sociales cambió los rituales, escenarios y tradiciones, prácticas del duelo y también la forma que lamentamos y expresamos desconsuelo al someter a los vivos y a los muertos a una redefinición de los conceptos de tiempo, espacio y formas de interacción. (Dilmaç, 2018).…”

Death and Communal Mass-Mourning: Vin Diesel and the Remembrance of Paul Walker

“…Temporally, from the moment of death and years after, social network sites can help construct and maintain the identity and the biography of the dead person through the provision of personal and shared memories, allowing friends to continue their bonds with the deceased -even to the point where the deceased is kept alive in "perpetuity" (Dilmaç, 2016;Irwin, 2015;Kern, Forman, & Gil-Egui, 2013). On social media, the memory of the departed, Dilmaç argues, which is by definition part of the past, is changed into a "dynamic memory" which is constantly updated (Dilmaç, 2016, p. 9 Psychologically and socially, memorialised profile pages and R.I.P pages can provide the bereft with a sense of connectedness with the community of mourners, and help in the process of sense making, providing communal spaces for expressions of sadness, shock, loss, and love (Carroll & Landry, 2010;Giaxoglou, 2015;Hård Af Segerstad & Kasperowski, 2015;Williams & Merten, 2009).…”

“…Temporally, from the moment of death and years after, social network sites can help construct and maintain the identity and the biography of the dead person through the provision of personal and shared memories, allowing friends to continue their bonds with the deceased – even to the point where the deceased is kept alive in “perpetuity” (Dilmaç, 2016; Irwin, 2015; Kern, Forman, & Gil-Egui, 2013). On social media, the memory of the departed, Dilmaç argues, which is by definition part of the past, is changed into a “dynamic memory” which is constantly updated (Dilmaç, 2016, p. 9). These observations well describe what VD does.…”