Exploring mourning practices through social media sites to discuss the relationship between remembrance or memory and contemporary mediated society.
Social media effectively offers a platform for people to publically mourn; be it the death of a loved one, a celebrity, or a national tragedy, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are filled with tributes and commemorations. Due to the increasing availability and participatory nature of the web, the internet has become an increasingly popular means of memorialisation, by offering a public space for people to come together in remembrance. Through this essay I intend to explore the public mourning process and what the discourse produced says about today’s society.
Over the past ten years the online …show more content…
Enabling the memorialisation of an existing account as well as setting up pages dedicated to the loss of a loved one. Enabling the public along with loved ones to join, like and comment on pages that tell a story of loss and commemoration, allowing public conversations, for example; Stephen Suttons Facebook page ‘thumbs up for Stephen” which through social media, sparked a huge public response resulting in over £3million donated to the teenage cancer trust. Degroot (2008) found that by mourning loss through social media, a relationship could be maintained with the deceased, as Facebook enables the continued existence of the page, enabling loved ones to freely view the content that was published before the death as well as create support systems thus easing the pain of the bereavement. Personal memorials often form parts of larger support systems for people with shared opinions and experiences of loss. Whilst these personal memorials to loved ones show the views of the individuals, when communities are formed through shared experience these discourses form public opinion and a cultural
Social media effectively offers a platform for people to publically mourn; be it the death of a loved one, a celebrity, or a national tragedy, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are filled with tributes and commemorations. Due to the increasing availability and participatory nature of the web, the internet has become an increasingly popular means of memorialisation, by offering a public space for people to come together in remembrance. Through this essay I intend to explore the public mourning process and what the discourse produced says about today’s society.
Over the past ten years the online …show more content…
Enabling the memorialisation of an existing account as well as setting up pages dedicated to the loss of a loved one. Enabling the public along with loved ones to join, like and comment on pages that tell a story of loss and commemoration, allowing public conversations, for example; Stephen Suttons Facebook page ‘thumbs up for Stephen” which through social media, sparked a huge public response resulting in over £3million donated to the teenage cancer trust. Degroot (2008) found that by mourning loss through social media, a relationship could be maintained with the deceased, as Facebook enables the continued existence of the page, enabling loved ones to freely view the content that was published before the death as well as create support systems thus easing the pain of the bereavement. Personal memorials often form parts of larger support systems for people with shared opinions and experiences of loss. Whilst these personal memorials to loved ones show the views of the individuals, when communities are formed through shared experience these discourses form public opinion and a cultural