Online memorial culture: an introduction

Over the last decades, death, dying, and (online) bereavement culture in the Western world have constituted a growing field of attention in the academic world. Much of the research has been nationally based and focused on monographic studies of specific fields, such as practices related to dying, burial traditions, and grave traditions. However, in recent years, the field has developed, becoming increasingly cross-disciplinary and with the formation of professional networks across countries. The research tradition has evolved out of clinical practices (see, for instance, Davies, 2004, 2005; Rando, 1986) and therapeutic traditions (see, for instance, Brotherson & Soderquist, 2002; Stroebe et al., 2005) and along the way meeting the demand for a greater societal understanding of the needs and practices in medical and social institutions and among practitioners. Thus, the field has mainly been researched and documented by social workers, palliative care, (health services) and sociologists. At the same time, but separately, anthropologists have studied death as an inherently social phenomenon. This includes the social technologies surrounding it in classical death studies such as Hertz (1907) and more recent studies like Bloch and Parry (1982). These studies are most often focused on dealing with death outside of the Western world and are based on ethnographic field studies. However, in recent years also, the anthropological study of death has become more cross-disciplinary and focused on practices of death in present-day Western countries (see, for instance Christensen & Sandvik, 2014; Christensen & Willerslev, 2013; Harper, 2012). Existing research includes not only studies of institutionalized practices concerning death, burial, mourning, and so on, but also studies focusing on the practices of bereavement as it is performed in more mundane settings (see, for instance, Davies, 2002; Venbrux, 2008). As such, these studies relate to the concept of everyday life as such (Elias, 1998; Featherstone, 1992) and in relation to death practices (Gibson, 2008). In recent years, media research has contributed to the field of death studies. Mediatization studies have focused on how various societal practices are influenced by media logics (Livingstone, 2009; Lundby, 2009) including religious practices (Hepp & Krönert, 2010; Hjarvard, 2011) and practices surrounding death and dying (Sumiala & Hakola, 2013). This tradition corresponds with research into the domestication of media (Haddon, 2004; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992) and its role in everyday life where digital media are playing an increasingly important role (Helles, 2012). The study of media in everyday life has a long New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 2015 Vol. 21, Nos. 1–2, 1–9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2015.988455