International Communication Association (ICA) Conference 2014 Seattle, Washington 22-26 May 2014 *CFP: Navigating a Networked Death panel *
From online memorials to crowdfunding funeral costs, the particular sociocultural and technological protocols of social network sites (SNS) undeniably impact experiences of death and mourning. SNS have become major loci for coping with loss and memorializing loved ones. People can simultaneously augment existing funerary practices and create new practices that take advantage of the unique affordances of SNS. As networked and collaborative forms of mourning extend into our online experiences, SNS may become a way of intensifying existing social networks, fomenting new bonds, even while collaborating on, contesting, or negotiating the memory of the deceased. While recent works have analyzed the specific modes of interaction on Facebook walls or MySpace memorials, we seek to better understand the relationships between these online interactions and on-the-ground relationships either affected or created by these exchanges. As the novelty of SNS responses to death fades, we must take a closer look at how these post-mortem social networking practices have become incorporated into everyday life. We are most interested in the relationship between the network of grievers and an individual who has died, and how the deceased becomes a particularly dense node in a constellation of relationships.
In this panel, we seek to bring together diverse perspectives on a topic that will affect everyone. As a universal aspect of life, death provides a lens through which to examine networked social bonds. The presentations in this panel will discuss the ways in which we might conceptualize links between online mourning practices and the embodied relationships they reflect, influence, and produce. Potential papers may explore the use of social media to plan memorial services, to collectively cope with loss, or the interactions between different members of an individual’s social circle on SNS and in face-to-face meetings. Especially pertinent are themes related to mourning, grief, memorialization, subjectivity, privacy, authority, collaboration, and affect. Panel co-chairs: Jed Brubaker, PhD candidate in Informatics at UC Irvine and Tamara Kneese, PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Please send 150-word abstracts no later than OCTOBER 31, 2013 to tek234@nyu.edu and jed.brubaker@uci.edu