#Funeral and Instagram: death,social media,and platform vernacular

This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by examining how social media is being mobilized in relation to death, the differences that different media platforms make, and the ways social media are increasingly entwined with the places, events, and rituals of mourning.     

Memory Healing Processes and Community Intervention in Grief Work in Africa

Western literatures on bereavement acknowledge the tendency to pathological grieving among some bereaved persons. The phenomenon of pathological mourning, however, is rare in Africa because of the presence of coherent and transformative rituals of mourning. This article argues that such rituals and performative experiences heal by addressing four principal aspects of the memory of the bereaved individual. The article elaborates on the content, process, symbolic meanings and clinical potency of these rituals.     

Mediatized Ritual – Expanding the Field in the Study of Media and Ritual

The purpose of the article Mediatized ritual – Expanding the field in the study of media and ritual is to identify the key debates in present‐day scholarship on media and ritual and bring them into dialogue with current theorizing on the mediatization of society and culture. The article consists of three parts. The first presents a short outline of the study of media and ritual in modern life. The second discusses the idea of mediatized ritual as an evolving concept in the field. The third provides an empirical illustration of the mediatization of ritual by applying the concept to the analysis of the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013). In conclusion, it is argued that to study mediatized rituals in today's society is to face the theoretical and empirical challenge of engaging the two social realms of ritual and media in a close interplay. This intellectual venture changes our understanding not only of rituals and media (what they are and what they do) but also of society. This said, to study mediatized rituals is, in fact, to study society in action.     

Is Death Taboo for Children? Developing Death Ambivalence as a Theoretical Framework to Understand Children’s Relationship with Death,Dying and Bereavement

Children’s voices are missing from debates related to the idea that death is a taboo subject and this limits understandings of how children encounter death. Drawing on data from focus groups with children aged 9–12, this paper aimed to explore if and how children experience death as a taboo, but discovered that the death‐taboo thesis lacks nuance, confining and misrepresenting children’s experiences. Death ambivalence is thus proposed as a conceptual tool to illuminate children’s relationship with death. It identifies policy and practice implications concerned with developing death literacy and brings a new theorisation to death and childhood studies.     

Jews in the News – Representations of Judaism and the Jewish Minority in the Norwegian Contemporary Press

This article provides an analysis of how Jewish rituals and Jews as a minority group are represented and debated in the Norwegian press: How is “news about the Jews” framed by the media? Which discourses dominate the debates? Are notions of what it “takes to be Norwegian” put forward in these cases? The article is also an analysis of Jewish voices in the press, and based on the fact that Jewish advocates refer to minority-based legal rights suggests that the Jewish minority benefits from the use of a broader international human rights discussion in the press. I claim that a multicultural discourse provides the Jewish minority with language that makes it possible to argue for cultural rights without referring to Jewishness; offering protection against a general fear of anti-Semitism.     

The Sociology of Death

The understanding of death, dying and bereavement in relation to society is indebted to a number of disciplines – anthropology, history, psychology and sociology are surveyed. Theories and methods used by sociologists of death, dying and bereavement are briefly outlined, followed by a number of key debates and challenges: denial, taboo and sequestration; death and the media; how to integrate scholarship in collective memory and Holocaust studies; theorising contemporary rites of passage; the lack of comparative research; and the need to focus on the meaning and organisation of death for those who encounter it most directly; namely, the poor, displaced and elderly. A brief discussion of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is followed by the conclusion that any promise of a general sociology conducted in the light of mortality has been eclipsed by yet another specialism, the sociology of death.     

Women behaving badly: negative posts on Facebook memorial pages

This study explores negative posts in Facebook pages dedicated to dead subjects. As with places for mourning in offline environments, memorial pages in Facebook appear to exude a sacred character as objects to both celebrate the life of the deceased and grieve their departure with others. Through a two-step content analysis of an initial sample of 600 pages containing the ‘R.I.P.’ acronym in their title, we found, however, a number of posts violating conventional expectations of respect for these mourning spaces. Negative posts in memorial pages take the form of flames (i.e., insults directed at the subject of the page, its administrator, or other visitors), venting (e.g., violent language against the victimizers of the subject of a memorial page), or ‘spam’ (i.e., advertisement and content not related to the subject and purpose of the page). Moreover, while results show that most memorial pages in Facebook are created and maintained by women (even thought the subject in the majority of those pages are young males who died an untimely death), they also reveal that women post the majority of negative posts in those pages as well. In other words, whereas women seem to perpetuate traditional offline roles in connection to mourning and grieving rituals, in the online world, they are also the first ones challenging the socially sanctioned sacral attributes of those practices in social networking sites.     

A comparison of widowhood and well-being among older Greek and British-Australian migrant women

The impact of widowhood on well-being has been well-documented, but to date has not focused extensively on the experience of older migrants who have aged in a foreign land. This study aimed to examine the well-being of older migrant widows from two groups in South Australia: British-born (n = 61) and Greek-born (n = 60) Australian migrants, who had been widowed, on average, 13 years. All participants completed a self-report questionnaire in their preferred language. Three indicators of current well-being (self-rated health, depression and loneliness) as well as variables expected to differ cross-culturally, and potentially influence well-being (mourning rituals; continuing bonds to one's spouse; religiosity; social support) were measured. Greek-born widows displayed higher levels of mourning rituals, continuing bonds and religiosity than the British. Both groups perceived similarly high levels of familial social support. Greek widows also reported worse self-rated health, and increased symptoms of depression and loneliness compared to the British. This paper suggests that the detrimental impact of widowhood on well-being may be greater for non-English speaking migrants who are ageing outside of their country of origin, and who, despite residing in an English-speaking host country for several decades, have retained the linguistic, cultural and religious practices and traditions of their home country.     

The Role of the Communal Voice in Constructing Meaning at the Funeral of an Infant Child in a Quaker Community in Costa Rica

This article attempts to capture the ongoing process of the construction of a “communal voice” out of the idiosyncratic “individual voices” of diverse people in a remote Quaker Community in the rainforest mountains of Costa Rica. The communal story is investigated through the rituals surrounding the death of an infant child. The constant dialogue is examined as the Cliffedgians struggle with issues of community/individualism, tolerance/conviction, and simplicity/benefit. Attention is also given to the communal construction of taboo areas of discourse.     

A Note on Mourning an Adoptive Parent in an Orthodox Jewish Family

ABSTRACT

A sensitive and potentially problematic manifestation of family bereavement situations may occur when one of the mourners is an adopted child. Using an ecosystems perspective, this paper examines the nature of mourning in Orthodox Jewish adoptive families and the therapeutic use of religious ritual and dicta to assist with the maintenance of family homeostasis during the potentially destabilizing period following the death of a relative. A case example is presented, illustrating the value of cooperation between therapists and clergy to determine appropriate interventions. Suggestions are made for the use of analogous rituals to assist a broader range of families.     

‘From Behind the Women's Petticoats’: The English Factory Act of 1874 as a Cultural Production1

Abstract In 1874 Parliament passed a law entitled ‘The Factories (Health of Women. etc) Act’ which limited the hours that women and children could work in textile factories to a 56 1/2 hour work week. In this paper I interpret the debates over hours legislation and the resulting Act as cultural productions. These cultural productions contributed to the formulation of a new social problem,‘the working mother’ promulgated an interpretation of who caused the problem, and reinforced a particular view of who was responsible for social reproduction. The rhetoric in the debates about the measure made crucial contributions to the future agenda for public policies concerning married women workers and working mothers, and reinforced a world view that state, economy and family are, and ought to remain, independent entities. My analysis draws from a range of theoretical traditions and works stressing the importance of language and other symbolic practices such as rituals in creating political subjects, problems and solutions. I examine the debates about state regulation in the 1870s to show how a symbolic or cultural analysis illuminates state-level politics and the formulation of public policy. It was through such laws and debates that the state contributed to the social construction of gender and a gendered economy.     

Texts and Other Symbolic Spaces

This article examines the cultural fabric of national identity in light of recent debates in the human sciences on the nature of texts and "textual realities." In discussing various political and historical examples, it argues that conceiving of national identity as a "textual reality" is to understand it (a) as a symbolic construction, (b) as a process of continuous cultural interpretation and reinterpretation, (c) as semiotic mediation, and (d) as a heterogeneous composition of different, often contradictory, layers of meaning. Although these issues have been discussed in different disciplines and theoretical contexts, they are viewed here as aspects of the same phenomenon, reflecting, each in its way, the conceptual scope of the textual approach. In further developing this argument, the article outlines a concept of text that covers not only linguistic phenomena in the traditional sense but also meaningful structures in a larger, cultural sense: symbolic spaces that embrace several semiotic media. Based on the idea of text as a symbolic space, a concept of national identity is suggested that, although it implies viewing identity as a discursive and narrative construction, is not limited to the mode of linguistic storytelling but also includes narrative media such as architecture, landscape design, cultural traditions such as commemorative rituals, and other symbolic and material practices.     

The Effectiveness of Guided Mourning for Adults with Complicated Mourning

Loss of a loved one is a common experience. For the bereaved to grieve is a natural expression of the loss, and mourning is the process through which one must pass in order to adapt to the reality of the loss. For various reasons, for some the mourning process becomes complicated, and the bereaved gets “stuck” in the process and fails to return to living life unburdened by the loss. Practitioners need to be aware of interventions that are proven to be effective in addressing complicated mourning. Initial search began with experimental and quasi-experimental studies but ended up including four pre-experimental studies. The study included adults who are not known to be intellectually challenged but who have suffered the loss of a loved one as a result of natural (illness) or violent (homicide, suicide, fatal accident) circumstances. A total of seven studies were reviewed. Guided mourning can be effective in helping an adult move through the mourning process. It is, however, imperative that the practitioner understands the mourning process and what has prevented the bereaved from moving forward through the process. Given how common grief and mourning are in the human experience, there is surprisingly little research on what is effective in helping those whose mourning has become complicated. More needs to be done in this area, including clearly defining the specific components of guided mourning and the clients who will be best served by this intervention.     

Live audience responses to live televised election debates: time series analysis of issue salience and party salience on audience behavior

Televised political debates are the platforms for party leaders to outline their party's political programs and to attack those of their political opponents. At the same time journalists who moderate the debates are testing the party leaders’ ability to clearly outline and defend their programs. Television audiences of election debates evaluate these party leaders and political parties based on their television performances. Prior to the social media era, viewers’ evaluations were collected through phone surveys or web questionnaires. Nowadays viewers share their opinions in real-time on social media. Particularly Twitter is used in the Netherlands as the platform to share these opinions. In this study tweets produced by the audiences of five different televised debates that took place during the campaign for the Dutch 2012 parliamentary elections are analyzed in terms of tweeting about politicians and parties as well as political issues, as well as the content of the debates. This allowed us, using time series analysis, to test the relation between issue salience in debates and issue salience of the audience on Twitter. The issues of ‘Employment and income’ and ‘Europe’ were the most tweeted about, roughly aligning with the attention these issues received in televised debates. Findings further show there are consistent audience reactions to issues discussed in the debates: issues of ‘Housing’, ‘Care for the needy', and ‘Europe’ showing the strongest effects. However, candidates and parties are not explicitly associated by people active on Twitter when certain political issues are being debated on TV.     

The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945-1950

This essay analyses the place of Jewish survivors in the refugee system established by the West in the aftermath of the Second World War. Departing from the literature of trauma and mourning, this article addresses Holocaust survivors as migrant refugees subjected to international categorisations, relief policies and human rights debates. Between 1945 and 1950, Jewish refugees were recognised as an ideal-type community of victims by western humanitarianism. Recognition entailed symbolic and material entitlements, and eventually rewarded Holocaust survivors with historical, political and territorial vindication. As opposed to other refugee groups who entered the market of international compassion in the 1940s, Jewish refugees were granted full status of political victims.     

The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950

This essay analyses the place of Jewish survivors in the refugee system established by the West in the aftermath of the Second World War. Departing from the literature of trauma and mourning, this article addresses Holocaust survivors as migrant refugees subjected to international categorisations, relief policies and human rights debates. Between 1945 and 1950, Jewish refugees were recognised as an ideal-type community of victims by western humanitarianism. Recognition entailed symbolic and material entitlements, and eventually rewarded Holocaust survivors with historical, political and territorial vindication. As opposed to other refugee groups who entered the market of international compassion in the 1940s, Jewish refugees were granted full status of political victims.     

Frankenstein journalism

Confronted with circumstances altered by the Internet, professional working practices have the option to change or to stay the same. This paper looks at how newsworkers in the new form of digital newsrooms have adapted the old location- or topic-based ‘beat’ system; now that they are called upon to curate or aggregate news stories which arrive fully formed from legacy news websites or emerge from social media. Stories like these are often valued for their virality – that is, how far and fast they have already spread – and their power to attract clicks from readers. Today, a growing number of news websites aggregate or curate such stories as part of their own news offerings. Yet curating these stories bring challenges to journalists’ identities and work practices, which demands a response. Based on an ethnographic study of eight digital newsrooms, we report how newsworkers use journalistic rituals to legitimise these second-hand stories flowing into the newsroom. We observed the use of rituals of objectivity, multiple sourcing and comparison with other news outlets as mechanisms that newsworkers used to validate and justify their use of second-hand content.     

For whom the bell tolls: state-society relations and the Sichuan earthquake mourning in China

In the wake of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008, the Chinese state, for the first time in the history of the People’s Republic, held a nationwide mourning rite for ordinary disaster victims. Why did this “mourning for the ordinary” emerge in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake but not previous massive disasters? Moreover, the Chinese state tried to demonstrate through the mourning that the state respected ordinary people’s lives and dignity. But this moral-political message contradicted the state’s normal repressive practice. The contradiction was salient when the state forbade the parents of child victims, who died of school collapse, to mourn their children at anniversaries of the earthquake. What can account for this contradiction? Drawing on the state-society relations perspective, I argue that the emergence of “mourning for the ordinary” can be explained by some important changes in structural state-society relations in China in the 2000s, such as the rapidly developing civil society with moral consciousness and the more adaptive authoritarian Chinese state with concern about its moral legitimacy. These changes were strengthened in the situational dynamics in 2008, which led to the state’s acceptance of a mourning proposal from the public sphere. The mourning did not occur in previous disasters because those structural factors were absent or weak and the situational dynamics were different. The state suppressed parents’ mourning and outside activists’ alternative mourning because the state’s concern with stability overrode its moral legitimation, particularly in the changing political context after the Beijing Olympics, and, meanwhile, the civil society was unable to resist the state’s repression. This study theorizes an important but understudied mourning genre, “mourning for the ordinary,” and introduces the state-society perspective into public ritual study.     

Public Dying: Death in the Media and Jade Goody

Abundant in books, on television, in film, on the internet, and in newspapers and magazines, in the twenty-first century death is hugely accessible. Within recent years, sociologists have responded to this visibility by examining death in the media, including its role and status in popular culture and ‘public mourning’, seen for example following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. This article considers a third strand of death in the media that requires sociological attention: public dying. Drawing on the extensive media coverage of reality TV personality Jade Goody’s dying and subsequent death in early 2009, the article examines the way in which Goody’s dying illustrated how it can be commodified.     

The Male Way of Mourning Divorce: When, What, and How

Based on the literature on divorce, this paper explores the distinct ways in which men mourn the losses inherent in the breakup of a marriage. It argues that men have a distinct way of mourning that differs from that of women. They start the mourning process later than women, mourn the loss of their home and children more than the loss of their wives, and tend to express their mourning through actions rather than in words or obvious emotional manifestations of grief. The paper considers possible reasons for these behaviors and their implications for practitioners.