Myles, D., Millerand, F. (2016). Mourning in a 'Sociotechnically' Acceptable Manner : A Facebook Case Study. In A. Hajek, C. Lohmeier & C. Pentzold (Eds.) Memory in a Mediated World. Remembering and Reconstructing (pp. 229-243). Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan.
This chapter investigates how mourning practices are transposed on and performed through social network sites (SNS). We define mourning practices as the ways in which bereavement status is performed and grief is expressed in socially acceptable manners. This interest in the social dimension of mourning was already present in Durkheim’s work (1912/2008, p. 567) in which he argues that ‘grief is not the spontaneous expression of individual emotions’.1 Mourning practices are framed through a series of conventions, customs and rules (Baudry, 2003) that authorize certain rights and privileges, but also stress certain restrictions and obligations to specific individuals (de Vries, 2001; Sklar, 1991). Mourning ‘causes mass or individual behaviours (attitudes, conducts, rituals) that are more or less strictly codified depending on cases, places and times’ (Thomas, 1988, p. 44).
This content has been updated on 19 September 2017 at 18 h 46 min.