Mediated Death

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Johanna Sumiala. Mediated Death

CONTENTS

Guide

List of Illustrations

Pages

MEDIATED DEATH

Preface

1 Mediating Death

‘Madness That Is Shared Is Not Madness’

The Problem of Mortality

The Myth of Media Overcoming Death

The Structure of the Book

2 A Brief History of an Idea

Early Spectacles of Death

Envisioning Death

Death in Hybrid Media

3 The Event of Death

Time of Death Events

Spatial Endeavours

Death Event as Ritual

Funerals as Ritual Media Events

4 Rethinking Mourning Rituals

Hybrid Grief in Social Media

Networked Mourning. Heart It – Instagram Mourning

‘#JeSuis …’

R.I.P on YouTube

Mourning on Facebook

Vernacular Sorrow

5 Ritual Contestations

Who Counts as an Ideal Victim?

Making Trayvon Martin’s Life and Death Grievable

Vicarious Witnessing

Witnessing Ahmed Merabet’s Death

‘Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead’

Livestreaming Death

Reality Murder

Suicide ‘en Direct’

6 Rituals Connect and Separate

Remembering Not to Forget

Ritual Insensibility

Whose Memories Matter?

Memory Work through the Video ‘For Our Son’

Multifaceted Connections

7 The Quest for Post-Mortality

Floating Death

Hybrid Liminalities

The Dilemma of Immortality

‘Who Wants to Live Forever?’

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z

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Отрывок из книги

Johanna Sumiala

Of course, public life in contemporary society is not free of death. On the contrary, death in its mediated form is present everywhere. We cannot walk through a city without encountering at least some form of mediated death. News and tabloid papers sold at stores and kiosks are full of death – because death sells. When we go to the movies, read books in cafes, or play games on our mobile phones on the train on the journey back from work or school, we encounter death. News media and entertainment feature, to a great extent, crime, violence, fatal attractions, illness, and loss. But we do not even need to leave our home to be surrounded by mediated death; no matter where we are or what we are doing, a mere glance at our smartphones is enough to be faced with death, as it is seemingly ever-present on news and social media. We learn about and post about death on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and we mourn, debate, and gossip about death in Messenger and WhatsApp. In this modern state of hypermediation of social life (Powell, 2015; Scolari, 2015), death is more present than we even realize. I find this new social reality – which is immersed in mediated death – both intriguing and uncanny; it certainly warrants a scholarly endeavour.

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Baudrillard, 1993, p. 126

In Baudrillard’s view, this is a fatal condition of modern society. He draws on the work of Marcel Mauss on gift economy and exchange, bringing it into critical dialogue with Marxist political economy. For Baudrillard, the attempt to eliminate death in modern capitalist society destroys the fundamental logic of social life – that is, the symbolic exchange between life and death. When life and death are separated from each other in this way, they are banalized and lose their meaning – death becomes a commodity. Consequently, the further modern capitalist society runs from death by trying to naturalize and tame it in line with its own calculative logic, the emptier – and more dead inside – it becomes (cf. Arppe, 1992, pp. 133–7).

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