Memoria virtualis - death and mourning rituals in online environments

The main objective of this work has been to understand the ritual aspect of how private people use the Internet to mourn and honor their intimates in various online environments. The research material was compiled in 2007–2013 through ethnographic and autoethnographic observations in social media applications, online memorial websites, one shared virtual environment (Second Life) and one massive multi-player online role-playing game (World of Warcraft). The research material consists of – in addition to the ethnographic observations – three online surveys with 153 respondents (mainly from Finland, the United States and the United Kingdom). In addition, the researcher conducted 38 longer online interviews (i.e. via email, an avatar). The theoretical framework is derived from ritual theory, hermeneutic-phenomenological anthropology and discourse analysis. The research questions are as follows: Why are death rituals practiced in online environments? How are virtual memorials created in various online environments? What kind of systems of meanings are virtual memorials constructed from? The results indicate that online mourning and honoring is appropriated in addition to the “traditional” offline rituals. In online environments the bereaved can choose, where, when, how and with whom they share their grief and loss. Memorials are created in the web intentionally and unintentionally, where the latter refers inter alia to the Facebook profile of the deceased where his/her intimates gather to mourn and honor immediately after the death. The first refers to intentionally memorialized online places spaces via different service providers. Virtual memorials are a way to construct the identity of the deceased, as well as the bereaved in multiple ways. They also re-enforce and create a sense of communality both privately and publicly, and enable one meaningful online place where all the intimates of the deceased can gather together to mourn and honor despite the geographical or time distances. Tämä väitöstutkimus tarkastelee miten nykyiset kuolemanrituaalit ovat digitalisoituneet verkkoympäristöihin. Tutkimus on suoritettu verkkoetnografisin sekä autoetnografisin menetelmin sosiaalisen median sivustoilla, virtuaalimuistomerkkipalveluissa, yhdestä virtuaalimaailmassa (Second Life) sekä yhdestä reaaliaikaisessa verkkopelissä (World of Warcraft) vuosina 2007–2013. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu etnografisten havainnointien lisäksi kolmesta verkkokyselystä, joissa vastaajia on yhteensä 153 pääasiassa Suomesta, Yhdysvalloista sekä Iso-Britanniasta. Kyselyjen lisäksi tutkija on tehnyt myös 38 laajempaa verkkohaastattelua eri ympäristöissä (esim. sähköposti, avatar virtuaalimaailmassa). Teoreettinen kehys koostuu rituaaliteoriasta, hermeneuttis-phenomenologiasta sekä diskurssianalyysista. Tutkimuskysymykset ovat seuraavat: miksi kuolemanrituaaleja harjoitetaan verkkoympäristöissä, miten virtuaalisia muistomerkkejä luodaan verkkoon, sekä millaisista merkitysjärjestelmistä virtuaaliset muistomerkit muodostuvat? Tutkimustulosten mukaan verkkosureminen ja muistaminen ovat tulleet perinteisten kuolemanrituaalien rinnalle, jolloin sureva itse voi päättää miten, missä, milloin sekä kenen kanssa suree läheistään. Muistomerkkejä verkkoon luodaan suunnitellusti (intentional) sekä suunnittelemattomasti (unintentional), jolloin jälkimmäinen viittaa esimerkiksi edesmenneen Facebook profiiliin, missä hänen läheisensä kokoontuvat muistelemaan ja suremaan välittömästi kuoleman jälkeen. Ensimmäinen taas viittaa suunnitelmalliseen muistomerkin luomiseen, jota varten löytyy useita palveluntarjoajia. Virtuaalimuistomerkit ovat keino rakentaa sekä edesmenneen että surevan identiteettiä, vahvistaa ja luoda yhteisöllisyyttä niin yksityisesti kuin julkisesti, sekä luoda yksi yhteinen aina ja kaikkialta saavutettavissa oleva merkityksellinen paikka verkkoon, missä kaikki läheiset voivat ajasta ja paikasta riippumatta muistella ja surra läheistään.Siirretty Doriast

Facebook, Ritual and Community – Memorialising in Social Media

Social networking websites and applications have become the defining factor of online social interaction in the 2010s. Their popularity and addictiveness are based on their ability to convey all aspects of human emotions, from love to hate, from envy to happiness, from humour to sadness, from life to death. However, all social networking sites, especially Facebook (abbreviated FB), have been facing the fact that some of their users have been dying and other people want to use the websites to reminisce about and mourn their loved ones. In a study on virtual memorials conducted already more than a decade ago, communication theorists de Vries and Rutherford argued that online memorials are ‘the postmodern opportunity for ritual and remembrance’ (2004, 2). More recent studies have suggested that the internet ‘brings death back into everyday life’ (Walter et al. 2011, 295), since death and mourning cultures have undergone significant changes during the 20th century (Ariès1981 [1977], 1974; Pentikäinen 1990; Walter 1994).   In this article, I will examine how commemoration and bereavement rituals (i.e. mourning rituals) are practiced on the Facebook social networking website, and how they build and maintain existential or spontaneous communitas, the transient personal experience of togetherness, at a time of loss (Turner 1995 [1969], 130–133). By mourning rituals, I am referring to the symbolised manner of communicating bereavement, care, love and affection at a time of loss. They are practices that function as socially approved symbols of emotions (Walter 1994, 77), which are intended to keep the community, friends and family of the deceased together at the time of loss (Bell 1992; Sumiala 2010; see also Durkheim 1980 [1912] and van Gennep (1960 [1909]). For example, the Finnish phrase ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ essentially means ‘I take part in your loss’, which symbolically refers to a way of taking on some of the grief and sharing the loss together with the bereaved. Flower wreaths, candles and other mementos are also familiar ways of expressing grief, especially at memorials — both online and offline. Mourning rituals in Web environments, however, are mediated by digital multimedia: images, video and text. &nbsp

Internet Ethnography: The Past, the Present and the Future

At the beginning of the 20th century, an anthropologist travelled to a distant location in a foreign country to observe, study and analyse different cultural behaviours. This was a fairly new type of fieldwork, since previously anthropologists had not travelled themselves, but had read accounts and stories written by missionaries and other travellers from the comfort of their armchairs. Now, however, anthropologists observed in situ and learned a new language or used a translator during the course of their ethnographic fieldwork. They transcribed field notes and interviews by hand, maybe taking some photographs or doing sketches of their surroundings and the people they observed. They used their bodies, eyes and minds to understand why people do what they do. They spent several months, often even years, in a foreign country, only to return home to publish an ethnography about that location and the people living there. Today, the story is a little bit different. Today, an ethnographer can open her or his portable computer anywhere that a (wireless) internet connection exists and enter a realm known as the internet — even from the comfort of an armchair. Such ethnographers engage in several social networks, observing behaviour, interactions and even various cultures within those digital surroundings. They collect and analyse digitalised data with the aid of different technologies, programs and applications. They can also use devices other than a computer, such as a smartphone — which is also usually connected to the internet — to take pictures, make notes and record audio and video material both online and offline. They use technology to study the use of technology in a world of networked relationships mediated by the internet

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Anna Haverisen digitaalisen kulttuurin alaan kuuluva väitöskirja Memoria Virtualis – death and mourning rituals in online environments tarkastettiin 8.8.2014 Turun yliopistossa. Vastaväittäjänä toimi Associate Professor Stine Gotved Kööpenhaminan IT-yliopistosta ja kustoksena professori Jaakko Suominen Turun yliopistosta

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Kirja-arvio teoksesta Matti Peltonen (toim.): Ariès ja historian salaisuus. Turun historiallinen yhdistys ry./Painosalama, Turku 2013. 206 sivua