Abstract
The digitization of society has redefined many dimensions of social reality, including such an individual experience as death. Even today, the end of life and the experience of mourning represent social issues that, on both the analog and digital planes, provoke broad debates and contrast spaces for reflection and the crossing of ethical and epistemological thresholds. While, however, in the physical world, there is the persistence of an invisibilization of death, in the digital world, death would seem to regain wide spaces of argumentation, narrative, and explicitness, shared and regulated by internalized social and moral norms. The article aims to analyze the social, emotional, and imaginary aspects of the end of life and the experience of mourning mediated by digital tools. In the context of digital ethnography, these aspects were explored through content analysis of living people’s interactions with the deceased's profile on three social media (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp). The aim was to identify a typology of users and the different narrative and elaborative modes of mourning by introducing the terms “Digital Gravestone” and “Digital Obituary”, not lacking, in the concluding part, references to ethical aspects on possible end-of-life scenarios and the experience of mourning.
References
Altman, I. & Vinsel, A. M. (1977). Personal Space. In I. Altman & J. F. Wohlwill (Eds.), Human Behavior and Environment (pp. 181-259). Boston, MA: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0808-9_5
Agustoni, A. (1998). L’Uomo di fronte alla morte nelle società contemporanee. Rivista degli Studi di Sociologia, 36(3), 279-289.
Abidin, C. (2019). Young people and digital grief etiquette. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self and Birth, Life, Death (pp. 160-174). London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315202129-10
Ariès, P. (2015). Storia della morte in Occidente, Segrate (MI): BUR Saggi, ed. digitale.
Baranowski, M. (2024). The database construction of reality in the age of AI: the coming revolution in sociology? AI & Society, 1-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01873-8
Battista, D. (2024). Political communication in the age of artificial intelligence: an overview of deepfakes and their implications. Society Register, 8(2), 7-24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2024.8.2.01
Bergson, H. (2003). Creative Evolution. Mineola: Dover Publications.
Brubaker, J. R., Hayes, G.R., & Dourish, P. (2013). Beyond the grave: Facebook as a site for the expansion of death and mourning. The Information Society, 29, 152-163. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2013.777300
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cavicchia Scalamonti, A., ed. (1984). Il “senso” della morte. Contributi per una sociologia della morte. Naples: Liguori.
Christensen, D. R. & Gotved, S. (2015). Online Memorial Culture: An Introduction. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 21(1–2), 1-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2015.988455
Church, S. H. (2013). Digital gravescapes: Digital memorializing on Facebook. The Information Society, 29(3), 184-189. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2013.777309
Colombo, A. (2022). Morire all’italiana. Pratiche, riti, credenze. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Cumiskey, K. M. & Hjorth, L. (2017). Haunting hands: mobile media practices and loss. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190634971.001.0001
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger. An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Elias, N. (2001). The loneliness of dying. London: The Continuum International Publishing.
Floridi, L. (2014). The Onlife Manifesto: Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era. Oxford: Springer Editor. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6
Gorer, G. (1977). Death, Grief and Mourning. London: London Press.
Hillman, J. (1988). Suicide and the Soul. Dallas: Spring Publications.
James, H. (1909). The Wings of the Dove. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (trad. it.: Le ali della colomba. Milano: Rizzoli, 1964).
Kaplan A. M. & Haenlein M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Kelley Business of School, Indiana University, Business Horizons. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003
MacKenzie, D. & Wajcman, J., eds. (1999). The social shaping of technology. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mangone, E. (2009). Negazione del sé e ricerca di senso. Il suicidio tra dato empirico e rappresentazione. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Moreman, C. M., ed. (2017). The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315723747
Parent, M., Plangger, K., & Bal A. (2011). The new WTP: Willingness to participate. Kelley Business of School, Indiana University. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.003
Pasquali, F. & Bartoletti, R. (2020). Gli italiani, la morte e i media digitali, accelerazioni e prospettive di ricerca oltre il Covid-19, Mediascapes Journal, 15, 222-239.
Savin-Baden, M. & Mason-Robbie, V., eds. (2020). Digital afterlife: Death matters in a digital age. Boca Raton: CRC Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429322198
Sisto, D. (2016). Digital Death: Come si narra la morte con l’avvento del web, da Trópos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica, 9(2), 9-46.
Sisto, D. (2018). La morte si fa social. Immortalità, memoria e lutto nell’epoca della cultura digitale. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Strate, L. (2004). A Media Ecology Review. Communication Research Trends, 23(2), 1-48.
Sumiala, J. (2013). Media and Ritual: Death, Community and Everyday Life. London, New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203094877
van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & De Waal, M. (2018). The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001
Walter, T. (2012). Why different countries manage death differently: A comparative analysis of modern urban societies. British Journal of Sociology, 63(1), 123-145. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01396.x
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Marianna Coppola, Emiliana Mangone
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Manuscript authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions for any copyrighted materials included within manuscripts. The authors must provide permission letters, when appropriate, to the Society Register Editors. In addition, all published papers in Society Register are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Authors retain copyright and publishing rights to their articles, granting the journal the right to distribute them under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0.
1.1 The Author hereby warrants that he/she is the owner of all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Work and that, within the scope of the present Agreement, the paper does not infringe the legal rights of another person. The owner of the copyright work also warrants that he/she is the sole and original creator thereof and that is not bound by any legal constraints in regard to the use or sale of the work.
1.2. The Publisher warrants that is the owner of the PRESSto platform for open access journals, hereinafter referred to as the PRESSto Platform.
2. The Author grants the Publisher non-exclusive and free of charge license to unlimited use worldwide over an unspecified period of time in the following areas of exploitation:
2.1. production of multiple copies of the Work produced according to the specific application of a given technology, including printing, reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means (reprography) and digital technology;
2.2. marketing authorisation, loan or lease of the original or copies thereof;
2.3. public performance, public performance in the broadcast, video screening, media enhancements as well as broadcasting and rebroadcasting, made available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them;
2.4. inclusion of the Work into a collective work (i.e. with a number of contributions);
2.5. inclusion of the Work in the electronic version to be offered on an electronic platform, or any other conceivable introduction of the Work in its electronic version to the Internet;
2.6. dissemination of electronic versions of the Work in its electronic version online, in a collective work or independently;
2.7. making the Work in the electronic version available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, in particular by making it accessible via the Internet, Intranet, Extranet;
2.8. making the Work available according to appropriate license pattern CC BY-NC 4.0 as well as another language version of this license or any later version published by Creative Commons.
3. The Author grants the Publisher permission to reproduce a single copy (print or download) and royalty-free use and disposal of rights to compilations of the Work and these compilations.
4. The Author grants the Publisher permission to send metadata files related to the Work, including to commercial and non-commercial journal-indexing databases.
5. The Author represents that, on the basis of the license granted in the present Agreement, the Publisher is entitled and obliged to:
5.1. allow third parties to obtain further licenses (sublicenses) to the Work and to other materials, including derivatives thereof or compilations made, based on or including the Work, whereas the provisions of such sub-licenses will be the same as with the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Creative Commons sub-license or another language version of this license, or any later version of this license published by Creative Commons;
5.2. make the Work available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, without any technological constraints;
5.3. appropriately inform members of the public to whom the Work is to be made available about sublicenses in such a way as to ensure that all parties are properly informed (appropriate informing messages).
6. Because of the royalty-free provision of services of the Author (resulting from the scope of obligations stipulated in the present Agreement), the Author shall not be entitled to any author’s fee due and payable on the part of the Publisher (no fee or royalty is payable by the Publisher to the Author).
7.1. In the case of third party claims or actions for indemnity against the Publisher owing to any infractions related to any form of infringement of intellectual property rights protection, including copyright infringements, the Author is obliged to take all possible measures necessary to protect against these claims and, when as a result of legal action, the Publisher, or any third party licensed by the Publisher to use the Work, will have to abandon using the Work in its entirety or in part or, following a court ruling in a legal challenge, to pay damages to a third party, whatever the legal basis
7.2. The Author will immediately inform the Publisher about any damage claims related to intellectual property infringements, including the author’s proprietary rights pertaining to a copyrighted work, filed against the Author. of liability, the Author is obliged to redress the damage resulting from claims made by third party, including costs and expenditures incurred in the process.
7.3. To all matters not settled herein provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the Polish Copyright and Related Rights Act shall apply.