Author(s)

Yiwu Zhou ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Zhejiang Gongshang University Hangzhou College of Commerce, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311599, China

Corresponding Author

Yiwu Zhou

ABSTRACT

With the advent of digital technology and the development of social media, the original individual and private death and mourning have entered the public space, and the increase in the number of accounts of the deceased has gradually turned social media platforms into cyber graveyards, where digital residents mourn online. In order to deeply understand this special communication phenomenon, this paper explores the significance and ethical dilemma of the account retention of the deceased from the perspectives of the deceased, mourners and society. The study found that, as a new memory device, social media platforms store a large number of digital records of the deceased, extending the length of people's lives, providing open space for the living to mourn and talk about their emotions, and the discussion of de-taboos also helps people to "desensitize" to death to a certain extent, but it is accompanied by privacy invasion, emotional trauma and pseudo-memorial problems. This paper puts forward some solutions to these problems.

KEYWORDS

Cyberspace, social media symbol, digital mourning

CITE THIS PAPER

Yiwu Zhou, Digital Mourning: The Retention Significance and Realistic Dilemma of the Online Social Media Platform "Cybercemetery". Media and Communication Research (2023) Vol. 4: 56-63. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/mediacr.2023.040309.

REFERENCES

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[4] Lan Yue. Fighting Forgetting: A study on Media memory of online memorial accounts in the Digital Humanities era [D]. Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, 2022.
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