Social Media as the Spatiotemporally Unconfined Cult of the Dead (original) (raw)

Death is one of the only experiences guaranteed to all living beings. However, its timing, whereabouts, and the actual experience of this concluding life event remain largely unknown. While a person may be surrounded by other people when lying on her or his deathbed, death itself stays an individual experience that, once completed, does not allow the deceased to convey any knowledge about it with the bereaved. Simultaneously, internet and communication technologies play an increasingly important role in re-creating and distributing knowledge. While research on social media and death has focused on the impact of such fora on the bereaved, this study elicits their potential for those suffering from a terminal illness. Following a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse, final Facebook posts are analyzed and their significance as a new ritual of farewell is discussed. The results point to the high degree of agency that dying individuals practice on social media for staging their final bow out, thus also impacting the existent societal discourse on dying and death.