The New Forms of Mourning: Loss and Exhibition of the Death on the Internet

Abstract

According to some specialists, ceremonial funeral practices are inclined to disappear, particularly as death is an object of repression in contemporary society. However, it seems that new forms of rituals are developing through modern technologies. Virtual tombs, memorial webpages, and the celebration of death anniversaries are now common currency on the Internet. Nonetheless, the overexposure favored by the Web seems to question traditional ways of “living out” one’s grief, subjecting the living and the dead to a redefinition of concepts of time and space, and entailing new forms of interaction.