Do Not Click “Like” When Somebody Has Died: The Role of Norms for Mourning Practices in Social Media

  • “s the need for norms on how to engage in online mourning practices and how to react toward expressions of grief and mourning.” ⤴️
  • “Results show that norms for mourning in social media are in flux and consistently negotiated between users. However, norms for mourning in social media often adhere to traditional norms that are adapted and reconfigured.” ⤴️
  • ”. Social media platforms consti- tute one of the “new social spaces” (Brubaker, Hayes, & Dourish, 2013, p. 153), in which death, l” ⤴️
    • “Social media platforms consti￾tute one of the “new social spaces” (Brubaker, Hayes, & Dourish, 2013, p. 153), in which death, loss, and mourning are growingly encountered and negotiated.”
  • ”, death, loss, and mourning are increasingly shaped and influenced by media communication.” ⤴️
  • ”. These platforms are either spe- cifically designed for mourning purposes or appropriated for these purposes by the users (Sofka, 2009).” ⤴️
  • ”: They either engage in mourning practices themselves or are confronted with other people’s mourning in the course of their everyday social media use” ⤴️
  • ”. As Giaxoglou (2014) puts it, mourning in social media is “a reconfigured rather than an entirely new form of mourning” (p. 25)” ⤴️
  • ”, certain phenomena we observe in the negotiation and construction of mourning online might be more particu- lar to social media technologies (e.g., the grief for virtual acquaintances, see Klastrup, 2015)” ⤴️
  • “y assume a qualitatively and quantitatively increasing impact of media communication on social life—which is also visible in the way people nowa- days grieve and mourn. As Lagerkvist (2013) puts it, “death has made a mediated return to the public sphere” (p. 9). The media, and social media in particular, pervading people’s everyday lives have become important new spaces for mourn- ing” ⤴️
  • ”, engaging in collective mourning practices” ⤴️
  • “d facilitating the (semi)public expression of emotion” ⤴️
  • “n a shift in traditional forms of mourning:” ⤴️
  • “As Giaxoglou (2014) puts it, mourning in social media is “a reconfigured rather than an entirely new form of mourning” (p. 25).”
  • “certain phenomena we observe in the negotiation and construction of mourning online might be more particu￾lar to social media technologies (e.g., the grief for virtual acquaintances, see Klastrup, 2015)”
  • ”, tem- poral expansion refers to the increase in breadth (integrating content related to the past, present, and the future) and imme- diacy of death- and mourning-related information intertwin- ing experiences of grief and loss with everyday social media experiences. Second, spatial expansion describes the disso- lution of geographical limitations, enabling participatory mourning practices not bound to specific locations. Third, social expansion is used to describe the unification of dis- tinct social groups through the spread of information related to the passing of an individual user.” ⤴️
  • “Social media can be described as “environment[s] built on the very idea of social interaction and sharing of affect” (Harju, 2014, p. 124). Due to their strong focus on interac- tion and emotion, social media platforms constitute easily accessible social spaces for the sharing, discussion, and negotiation of information on death, grief, loss, and mourn- ing (Gibson, 2015)” ⤴️
  • “y cultural expan- sion, which is closely linked to the phenomenon of social expansion. Social media constitute a melting pot for differ- ent cultures and offer the users a variety of cultural identity concepts to choose from (Hepp, 2010). As the nature of mourning practices in social media, as well as the social media use itself depend on the cultural contexts they are embedded in (Kim, Sohn, & Choi, 2011; Schiefer, 2007), the negotiation and appropriation of culture play an impor- tant role for mourning in social media.” ⤴️
  • “provide an expansion to the existing “offline” mourning spheres, with which they are closely interrelated (Refslund Christensen & Gotved, 2015).” ⤴️
  • “s culture-specific customs and rituals are core to the way people mourn,” ⤴️
  • “s creating virtual memorial sites and sharing memories, are practices” ⤴️
  • “o an expansion in the array of rituals and practices that might be adapted or neglected for mourning (Irwin, 2015).” ⤴️
  • “Following Giaxoglou’s (2014) definitions, mourning can be described as “public and socially sanctioned displays of grief” (p. 12), whereas the related practices “are social prac- tices that vary across and within cultures and epochs” (p. 12)” ⤴️
  • ”. Examples for these practices include the sharing of memories (e.g., by posting textual or (audio-)visual content), creating virtual memorial sites (e.g., by setting up a memo- rial page), and communicating with the deceased and other bereaved (e.g., by commenting and liking;” ⤴️
  • “e “communication of, to, and about the dead” (Brubaker et al., 2013)” ⤴️
  • “Both engaging in mourning practices and being con- fronted with mourning-related content not only can comprise certain benefits but might also pose severe challenges to the users. Expressing one’s own grief and sharing it with others on social media has been shown to fulfill a variety of impor- tant functions for the bereaved, such as emotion regulation and finding emotional support (Döveling, 2015; Goldschmidt, 2013; Maple, Edwards, Minichiello, & Plummer, 2013), maintaining relationships with the dead (Brubaker & Hayes, 2011; Klass, 2006), connecting and networking with people in similar situations or addressing otherwise stigmatized top- ics of taboo (Bailey et al., 2015). However, mourning in social media might also mean dealing with possibly grief- disturbing phenomena such as trolling (Phillips, 2011) or emotional rubbernecking (De Groot, 2013), issues of post- mortal information management (Bollmer, 2013; Wright, 2014) or emotional strains when learning of the death of a loved one (Brubaker et al., 2013).” ⤴️