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Download Download Anna Haverinen Facebook, Ritual and Community – Memorialising in Social Media Introduction bols of emotions (Walter 1994, 77), which are in- tended to keep the community, friends and fam- Social networking websites and applications have ily of the deceased together at the time of loss become the defi ning factor of online social inter- (Bell 1992; Sumiala 2010; see also Durkheim action in the 2010s. Th e ir popularity and addic- 1980 [1912] and van Gennep (1960 [1909]). For tiveness are based on their ability to convey all example, the Finnish phrase ‘I’m sorry for your aspects of human emotions, from love to hate, loss’ essentially means ‘I take part in your loss’, from envy to happiness, from humour to sad- which symbolically refers to a way of taking on ness, from life to death. However, all social net- some of the grief and sharing the loss together working sites, especially Facebook (abbreviated with the bereaved. Flower wreaths, candles and FB), have been facing the fact that some of their other mementos are also familiar ways of express- users have been dying and other people want to ing grief, especially at memorials — both online use the websites to reminisce about and mourn and offl ine. Mourning rituals in Web environ- their loved ones. In a study on virtual memorials ments, however, are mediated by digital multi- conducted already more than a decade ago, com- media: images, video and text. munication theorists de Vries and Rutherford ar- Th e analytical terms existential or spontaneous gued that online memorials are ‘the postmodern communitas were coined by ritual theorist and opportunity for ritual and remembrance’ (2004, anthropologist Victor Turner (1995, 132–136), 2). More recent studies have suggested that the who links existential/spontaneous communitas to internet ‘brings death back into everyday life’ immediacy and spontaneity, where two individ- (Walter et al. 2011, 295), since death and mourn- uals experience ‘the being of the other’ through ing cultures have undergone signifi cant changes instant mutuality. In other words, they share an during the 20th century (Ariès1981 [1977], 1974; experience that binds them together for a spe- Pentikäinen 1990; Walter 1994). cifi c amount of time and they actively seek out In this article, I will examine how commemo- togetherness from each other during that time. ration and bereavement rituals (i.e. mourning Ritualised communication enhances the experi- rituals) are practiced on the Facebook social net- ence of communitas and binds people together at working website,1 and how they build and main- a deeper symbolical level. tain existential or spontaneous communitas2, the Th e research material used for this article was transient personal experience of togetherness, gathered through ethnographical fi eldwork and at a time of loss (Turner 1995 [1969], 130–133). consists of both Finnish and American memorials By mourning rituals, I am referring to the sym- on Facebook. Th ere are several ways to mourn and bolised manner of communicating bereavement, honour a loved one on the Web, but here I will fo- care, love and aff ection at a time of loss. Th ey are cus on the importance of FB as paving the way for practices that function as socially approved sym- online mourning rituals since it is the only web- 7 site that I have been constantly observing since anniversaries and calendar holidays. (Haverinen 2007. Digital media, such as FB, enables the ar- 2014.) Ritual theorist Catherine Bell highlights, ticulation of everyday selves and the aff ordanc- however, that not all communication is necessary es of sharing care and aff ection for one another ritual; when the core and the aim of the commu- (Giaxoglou 2014, 13), especially at a time of loss. nication is culturally and socially shared ways of In the following sections, I will introduce ritual expressivity and symbolism (such as how to off er and communitas as theoretical concepts as well condolences, when and to whom), it is still con- as the empirical research material and methods. sidered ritualistic (Bell 1992, 73). After that, I will examine how Facebook has been According to art researcher Liisa Lindgren, appropriated for mourning and honouring ritu- memorials are designed to construct a sense of als, both from the perspective of users and the community and they serve as symbols of collec- service provider. Th en, I will continue analysing tive history as well as symbolical spaces of re- digitalised rituals and how they convey commu- membrance (Lindgren 2000, 220). In social me- nitas. Finally, I will discuss the notion of authen- dia applications, these spatial notions are only ticity in Web environments and how it aff ects the refl ected at an abstract level, since Facebook as an experience of communitas and rituals. application is very two dimensional. Nonetheless, Facebook as a space is quite porous and hetero- geneous, since it is linked to other Web environ- Ritual and communitas (on Facebook) ments and applications that are shared within and through FB. Th is porousness is further applied in In this section, I will briefl y refl ect upon the no- memorialised spaces, since people share a great tions of ritual and community, both offl ine and amount of external content (i.e. links to videos, online, in the context of Facebook memorials. A images) at memorial spaces. sense of community plays an important role in Th e feeling of co-presence, speed and accessi- death rituals — whether they are practiced in bility are also factors that diff erentiate the digital either the digital or analogue world. According from the analogue. A digital community is often Turner (1995 [1969], 130–133), ritual is the af- a real-time community, one that binds together a fi rmation community, one which binds it togeth- much larger body of people than through in-per- er and strengthens the feeling of togetherness.3 son communication and also contains extended Ritual channels communitas (the sense of exis- networks, the people who are not considered the tential togetherness) and institutionalised so- closest of intimates, but who nevertheless are im- cial order, and it serves as the arena where social portant to keep in contact with via the technology changes (such as death) lead to a new social or- (see also Refslund Christensen & Sandvik 2013). der (such as widowhood or the dead moving on But most importantly, Web technology creates to the afterlife). and enables the feeling of co-presence, especially Social media applications, especially Facebook, for those who consider themselves ‘always online’. are designed to thrive on a sense of community, Smart phone technology has brought the inter- since they create networks of individuals who net to our pockets and made it more ubiquitous share the same interests and social relationships and portable than ever. together in real-time. Mourning rituals on Face- Social media scholar danah boyd (2012, 71) book manifest themselves in the form of sharing writes that, ‘the online is always around the cor- poems and bible quotes, R.I.P. status updates, ner. I look up information, multitask by surfi ng uploading photos and sharing links to YouTube the web, and backchannel with friends. I’m not content (music, mostly) for a memorialised Fa- really online, in that my activities are not centered cebook account, profi le group or page. Th ese rit- on the digital bits of the Internet, but I’m not re- uals also consist of off ering condolences to the ally offl ine either. I’m where those concepts break grieving family and regular visits to the memori- down.’ boyd also notes that being always-on does alised Facebook page or profi le, especially during not necessarily mean the person is always accessi- 8 ble for others (2012, 72). Th is is where the notion non in question and aspires to collect a contextu- of co-presence, sharing imagined spaces, comes in. ally rich set of ethnographic data on what is hap- Social scientist Sherry Turkle has discussed the pening, why, by whom, when and where. notion of co-presence as a social and psychologi- In practice, I have been using Facebook since cal GPS (2011, 67), although she criticises it as a 2007 on a daily basis for my personal work and means of detaching people from the advantages until 2014 for research as well. When searching of in-person communication and of even creat- for research material, I used the search func- ing social awkwardness. However, the results of tion and several Finnish and English keywords my doctoral study indicate that the feeling of co- (‘muistolle’, ‘in memoriam’, ‘rip’) to fi nd memo- presence, real-time community, especially for a rial groups and pages. Despite many of them be- bereaved individual, is highly empowering, since ing public and publicly visible, I requested per- the individual knows that she or he can always mission from every single of them, and in most connect with someone in their time of need de- cases the permission was declined. Many people spite the time and place. declined my research requests since they felt their mourning on Facebook was not ‘something for research’. Also, many groups and pages do not Research material and methods realise the full public nature of their content, es- pecially on Facebook, where the user must reg- Th e overall research material is derived from my ister fi rst. However, many groups and pages are doctoral research conducted in 2007–2014, which nevertheless accessible via Google.5 (Haverinen consists of three online surveys, 153 survey an- 2014; see also Kuula 2011 [2006]; Östman & swers and 38 online interviews, ethnographic Turtiainen 2013.) observations (both participant and autoethno- Eventually, I observed six Finnish memorial graphic) of several memorial groups and memori- pages and fi ve pages from the United States (in alised profi les (both private and public).
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