Death and Digital Media

Death and Digital Media provides a critical overview of how people mourn, commemorate and interact with the dead through digital media. It maps the historical and shifting landscape of digital death, considering a wide range of social, commercial and institutional responses to technological innovations. The authors examine multiple digital platforms and offer a series of case studies drawn from North America, Europe and Australia. The book delivers fresh insight and analysis from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and media studies. It is key reading for students and scholars in these disciplines, as well as for professionals working in bereavement support capacities.

1. Death and Digital Media: An Introduction2. Pre-Digital Mediums, Media, and Mediations3. The Materialities of Gravesites and Websites4. Death and Social Media: Entanglements of Policy and Practice5. Mixing Repertoires: Commemoration in Digital Games and Online Worlds6. The Funeral as a Site of Innovation7. Looking to the Future of Life after DeathAfterword by Elizabeth Hallam

Michael Arnold isAssociate Professorand Head of Discipline in the History and Philosophy of Science Programme in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Martin Gibbs is Associate Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems and a member of the Interaction Design Lab (IDL) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Tamara Kohn is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the School of Social and Political Sciences and Coordinator of Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, Australia. James Meese isLecturer in the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney,Australia. Bjorn Nansen isSenior Lecturer in Media and Communicationsat the University of Melbourne, Australia.