Racial Differences in Response to Chadwick Boseman’s Colorectal Cancer Death: Media Use as a Coping Tool for Parasocial Grief

Abstract

The August 2020 death of Black actor Chadwick Boseman, at age 43 from colon cancer was a notable public event. Given Boseman’s popularity, particularly amongst Black audiences, and racial disparities in colorectal cancer rates, public responses to this news provided a window into potential racial differences in expressing and responding to parasocial grief, that is, grief at the loss of a public figure. Additionally, given how the movies he starred in were easily viewable by audiences stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and given his popularity on digital spaces like Black Twitter, this case offers insights into how media use can help people cope with parasocial grief. We conducted a mixed-methods survey study of audience responses Boseman’s death. Quantitative results reveal that Black audiences had different rates of social sharing and movie viewing than non-Black audiences, with additional insights emerging from a thematic analysis of the open-ended data.