Cultural Studies & Communication

Current Issue

By Issue

By Author

By Subject

Author Index

Keyword Index

About Journal

Aims and Scope

Publication Ethics

Indexing and Abstracting

Related Links

FAQ

Peer Review Process

News

Gide

Paper Preparation Guide for Accepted Papers

Forms and Instructions

Submit Manuscript

Celebrity culture and presentation of mourning on new media Narrative analysis of Bahareh Rahnama, Nasim Adabi and Reza Sadeghi's Instagram Pages

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant professor, social communication department, Allameh Tabataba'i university

2 Faculty member, Department of Journalism, Allameh Tabataba'i University

Abstract

With the ever-increasing mediatization of social life areas, being seen and attracting attention has gained the highest value, and all tools have been used to represent the “self” (Marwick, 2012).  Celebrities have also found the possibility to live in front of their fans and share many events of their daily life with them on social media. According to Goffman, the "scene" of everyday life is ready for the performance (Goffman, 2019) and social media can expand this field even more. Among social media platforms, Instagram has been widely used by users, including celebrities, due to its special features, such as being image-oriented, easy to use, and available as a mobile application.
On Instagram, celebrities have the opportunity to share thanatologic subjects like death, loss, and bereavement as well as other aspects of their daily lives. Thus they share their experiences of joys, sorrows, achievements, positive and negative emotions, emotional attachments, and losses with their fans and present pieces of it on this stage. For this reason, it is important to study the online actions of celebrities and their interactions with the fans.
 
Objective
To analyze the behavior of Iranian celebrities in the social networks, the authors of this paper chose "mourning" -which is one of the most sensitive and upsetting human experiences- as the subject of their study. That’s based on this fact that the mourning mediated through social networks has a visual and narrative character in which people carry out the ceremonies related to the deceased person completely in the media and through the media (Gibson, 2007).
This study seeks to find out from what angles celebrities express the experience of "lack" on their Instagram page. Mourning means a normal reaction to the loss of a loved one which sometimes involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life (Freud, 2012). This inevitably manifests in mourning rituals, speech, non-verbal communication, and all of the actions of the grieving person. The important questions are as follows: how celebrities bring their mourning to the stage on their Instagram page, what dimensions they give to their mourning, and how they interact with their followers about this loss?
 
Research Method
The authors of this article first compiled a list of bereaved celebrities and reviewed their Instagram posts about their bereavement from April 2020 to the time the research began (January 2022). Finally, using targeted non-random sampling method, among the observed celebrities, three were chosen for deeper investigation. In addition to the high number and variety of audiences, the basis for selecting these three people was the variety of text and image posts and related hashtags, as well as greater narrative coherence of the posts. All of the related Instagram, from the beginning to the time of the research, were extracted and analyzed using the Van Dijk model. In this research, a bereaved celebrity is someone who has lost a close family member or close friend and a celebrity is a famous person in the real/non-virtual world, who has also a significant number of followers in the virtual world.
To ensure the reliability of this study, all its methodological details -including the sampling method and its selection logic- the data collection method, and the data analysis method were described. Both researchers participated in the data analysis and reviewed each other's views. Also to ensure the validity of this study, both authors were present and participated in the entire research process. In this study, in order to document the analysis, evidences from Instagram posts were brought many times and an attempt was made to analyze the findings with the presentation of evidences.
Findings
The main question of the study is as follows: how celebrities express the experience of "lack" on their Instagram page? In this study, three celebrities offer us three different narratives. Nasim Adabi's narrative is in sync with the natural pace of mourning: bewilderment, acceptance, and continuation of life and this psychological ups and downs can also be followed in the themes raised in the posts. In Rahnama's narrative, mourning does not go through its natural cycle; It turns into repeated small cycles. Father is not dead. He continues to live on the virtual stage, and the course of mourning for his death is interrupted before it is complete, returning to the starting point to serve the performance of a show that is supposed to be on the stage for a long time. In the narrative of Reza Sadeghi, the usual mourning process is not seen from the beginning to the end. What can be seen are repetitive, unvaried, and monotonous strategies, with an audience-friendly and populist language which is full of repetitive, passionate sad words and themes, with the label of mourning. The deceased is a mediator for the mourner's voice to be heard. In fact, the deceased cooperates with the mourner in promoting his music and reproducing his identity and helping him become more visible.
 
Conclusion
The common point of this study and some other studies mentioned in this paper is the stage that mourning provides to celebrities to represent themselves. This allows the celebrity to turn this stage into a new arena to construct a new dimension of his identity as a bereaved person. Celebrities play an important role in the creation of new rituals in the online world, and the mourning of celebrities can become rituals of the online world - rituals with the presence of the deceased who continue to live in the virtual world and the ordinary users who want the continuation of the life of these deceased in the online world. In this way, ordinary users borrow online expressions of mourning from bereaved celebrities, and as a result, the online mourning experience of ordinary users may become even more dramatic than before. Of course, the mourning of celebrities is more glamorous, but this stage has provided an arena for the identification and mourning of ordinary users at a lower level.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References
 
Aeini, B.; Zohouri, M. & Mousavand, M. (2023). Iranians and Privacy Preservation on Social Media: A Systematic Review. Positif Journal. 23(10). 88-100.
Akhther, N., Tetteh, D. (2021). “Global Mediatized Death and Emotion: Parasocial Grieving—Mourning #stephenhawking on Twitter”. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying,1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228211014775
Ameli, S.; Shokrkhah, Y.; Mansouri, T. (2019). “Iranian Experience of Dual Spacization of Virtual Mourning: Social Network of Facebook”. Journal of Culture-Communication Studies. No 80. p 7-36. (in Persian)
Arie`s, P. (1982). The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Aris, S., Aeini, B., & Nosrati, S. (2023). A Digital Aesthetics? Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Art. Journal of Cyberspace Studies, 7(2), 219-236. doi: 10.22059/jcss.2023.366256.1097
Bonsu, S. K. (2007). “The Presentation of Dead Selves in Everyday Life: Obituaries and Impression Management”. Symbolic Interaction, 30(2), 199–219.
Brubaker, J. R., & Hayes, G. R. (2011). “We Will Never forget you [online]”: An Empirical Investigation of Post-mortem MySpace Comments. CSCW 2011.
Brubaker, J. R., Hayes, G. R., & Dourish, P. (2013). “Beyond the Grave: Facebook as a Site for the Expansion of Death and Mourning”. The Information Society, 29, 152–163. doi:10.1080/01972243.2013.777300
Cardon, D. (2011). “Re´seaux sociaux de l’internet”. Communications, 1(88), 141–148.
Casilli, A. (2010). Les liaisons numeriques. Vers une nouvelle sociabilite?”. Paris, France: Seuil.
Castells, M. (2010). The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Translators: Ahad Aligholian & Afshin Khakbaz. 6th ed. Tehran: Tarh-e Now Publications. (in Persian)
Chambat, P. (2000). “La democratie assistee par Ordinateur”. Cahiers Politiques, 4, 46–80.
Church, S. H. (2013). “Digital Gravescapes: Digital Memorializing on Facebook”. Information Society, 29(3), 184–189.
Cohen, J. (2003). “Parasocial Breakups: Measuring Individual Differences in Responses to the Dissolution of Darasocial Relationships”. Mass Communication and Society, 6, 191–202. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0602_5
Dagnaud, M. (2013). Generation Y. Les jeunes et les reseaux sociaux, de la derision a la subversion. Paris, France: Presses de Sciences Po.
de Vries, B., & Rutherford, J. (2004). “Memorializing Loved Ones on the World Wide Web”. Omega, 49(1), 5-26.
DeGroot, J. M., & Leith, A. P. (2018). “R.I.P. Kutner: Parasocial Grief following the Death of a Television Character”. OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, 77(3), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815600450
Dilmaç, J. A. (2016). “The New Forms of Mourning: Loss and Exhibition of the Death on the Internet”. OMEGA. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0030222816633240
Doveling, K., Harju, A. A., & Sommer, D. (2018). “From Mediatized Emotion to Digital Affect Cultures: New Technologies and Global Flows of Emotion”. Social Media+Society, 4(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117743141
Eslami, E.; Mousavi, S.H.; Alikhah F. (2020). “Virtual Celebrities: Familiar Strangers in the Age of Social Media- a Typology of Famous Iranian Women on Instagram”. Journal of Cultural Studies & Communication. No 59. p 45-74. (in Persian)
Evans, S. K., Pearce, K. E., Vitak, J., & Treem, J. W. (2017). “Explicating Affordances: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Affordances in Communication Research”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12180
Ferguson, N. (2020). The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power. Translator: Zahra Aali. Tehran. Farhang-e Nashr-e Now. (in Persian).
Francis, D., Kellaher, L., & Neophytou, G. (2005). The Secret Cemetery. Oxford: Berg.
Freud, S. (2003). “Mouring and Melancholia”. Translator: Morad Farhadpour. Arghanun Quarterly. No 21. p 83-101. (in Persian)
Furedi, F. (2004). Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. London: Routledge.
Giaxoglou, K. (2020). A Narrative Approach to Social Media Mourning: Small Stories and Affective Positioning. London: Routledge.
Giaxoglou, K., & Doveling, K. (2018). “Mediatization of Emotion on Social Media: Forms and Norms in Digital Mourning Practices”. Social Media+Society, 4(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117744393
Gibson, M. (2007). “Some Thoughts on Celebrity Deaths: Steve Irwin and the Issue of Public Mourning”. Mortality, 12(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576270601089663
Gibson, M. (2008). Objects of the Dead: Mourning and Memory in Everyday Life. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (2020). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Translator: Masoud Kianpour. Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz. (in Persian)
Gozlan, A., & Masson, C. (2013). “Le theatre de Facebook: Reflexion autour des enjeux psychiques pour l’adolescent”. Adolescence, 2(84), 471–481.
Granovetter, M. (1973). “The Strength of Weak Ties”. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.
Gustavsson, A. (2010). “An Existence after Death? Conceptions of Faith as Expressed on Memorial Internet Websites in Norway and Sweden”. Paper presented at the Nordic Network of Thanatology, Aalborg, Denmark.
Hallam, E., & Hockey, J. (2000). Death, Memory and Material Culture. Oxford: Berg.
Hallam, E., Hockey, J., & Howarth, G. (1999). Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity. London: Routledge.
Haroche, C. (2011). “L’invisibilite´ interdite”. In N. Aubert & C. Haroche (Eds.), Les tyrannies de la visibilite. (pp. 77–102). Toulouse, France: Eres.
Hashemi Monfared, A.; Rabiee A. (2017). “a Case Study on Presentation of Self in Instagram Users”. Quarterly Journal of Social Sciences. No 78. p 157-194. (in Persian)
Haskins, E. (2007). “Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age”. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 37(4), 401-422.
Hastings, S. O., Hoover, J. D., & Musambira, G. (2005). “In My Heart for Eternity”: Normalizing Messages to the Deceased”. Storytelling, Self, Society, 1, 11-25.
Highfield, T., & Leaver, T. (2016). “Instagrammatics and Digital Methods: Studying Visual Social Media, from Selfies and GIFs to Memes and Emoji”. Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 47–62. https://doi.org/1080/22041451.2016.1155332
Hjarvard, S. (2008). “The Mediatization of Society”. Nordicom Review, 29(2), 102–131. https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0181
Hockey, J., Komaromy, C., & Woodthorpe, K. (2010). The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Karimi, B.; Delavar, A.; Farhangi, A.A. (2021). “Instagram: A new Way of Seeing and Being Seen and its Consequences”. Rasaneh Quarterly. No 122. p 29-51. (in Persian)
Kasket, E. (2009). “The Face (Book) of Death: Posthumous Identity and Interaction on a Social Networking Site”. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Death, Dying and Disposal, Durham, UK.
Keane, H. (2009). “Foetal Personhood and Representations of the Absent Child in Pregnancy Loss Memorialization”. Feminist Theory, 10(2), 153-171.
Kern, R., Forman, A. E., & Gil-Egui, G. (2013). “R.I.P.: Remain in Perpetuity. Facebook Memorial Pages”. Telematics and Informatics, 1(30), 2–10.
Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., & Nickman, S. L. (Eds.). (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis.
Klastrup, L. (2018). “Death and Communal Mass-mourning: Vin Diesel and the Remembrance of Paul Walker”. Social Media + Society 4 (1), 1-11.
Lagerkvist, A. (2013). “New Memory Cultures and Death: Existential Security in the Digital Memory Ecology”. Thanatos, 2(2), 1–17.
Lalo, V. (2012). “Des figurines aux avatars”. Le Journal des Psychologues, 6(299), 24–27.
Lindlof T.R.; Taylor, B.C. (2009). Qualitative Communication Research Methods. Translator: Abdollah Givian. Tehran: Hamshahri Publications. (in Persian)
Lingel, J. (2013). “The Digital Remains: Social Media and Practices of Online Grief”. Information Society, 29(3), 190–195.
Lofland, L. H. (1985). “The Social Shaping of Emotion: The Case of Grief”. Symbolic Interaction, 8(2), 171– 90.
Mahdizadeh, S. M. (2010). Media Theories: Popular Thoughts and Critical Perspectives. Tehran: Hamshahri Publications. (in Persian)
Marwick, A., & Ellison, N. B. (2012). “There Isn’t Wifi in Heaven! Negotiating Visibility on Facebook Memorial Pages”. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(3), 378–400.
Marwit, S. J., & Klass, D. (1995). “Grief and the Role of the Inner Representation of the Deceased”. Omega, 30(4), 283-298.
Massimi, M., & Baecker, R. M. (2010). “A Death in the Family: Opportunities for Designing Technologies for the Bereaved”. Paper presented at the CHI, Atlanta, GA. Retrieved from http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mikem/pubs/MassimiBaecker-CHI2010.pdf
Molaei, M. M.; (2016). “Circulation of Celebrity Culture on Social Media Studying Iranian Celebrities and their fans on Instagram”. Journal of Society, Culture, and Media. No 21. p 57-80. (in Persian)
Morse, T. (2018). “The Construction of Grievable Death: Toward an Analytical Framework for the Study of Mediatized Death”. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(2), 242–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549416656858
Moss, M. (2004). “Grief on the Web”. Omega, 49(1), 77-81.
Nora, P. (1989). ”Between History and Memory”. Representations, 26(Spring), 7-24.
Nosrati, S., Sabzali, M., Arsalani, A., Darvishi, M., & Aris, S. (2023). Partner choices in the age of social media: are there significant relationships between following influencers on Instagram and partner choice criteria?. Revista De Gestão E Secretariado (Management and Administrative Professional Review), 14(10), 19191–19210. https://doi.org/10.7769/gesec.v14i10.3022
Odom, W., Harper, R., Sellen, A., Kirk, D., & Banks, R. (2010). “Passing on and Putting to Rest: Understanding Bereavement in the Context of Interactive Technologies”. Paper presented at the CHI, Atlanta, GA.
Pene, S. (2011). “Facebook mort ou vif. Deuils intimes et causes communes”. Questions de communication, 1(19), 91–112.
Quan-Haase, A. (2016). Technology and Society: Social Networks, Power and Inequality (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Rathnayake, C., & Ntalla, I. (2020). “Visual Affluence in Social Photography: Applicability of Image Segmentation as a Visually Oriented Approach to Study Instagram Hashtags”. Social Media+Society, 6(2), 205630512092475. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120924758
Roberts, P., & Lourdes, A. V. (1999-2000). “Perpetual Care in Cyberspace: A Portrait of Memorials on the Web”. Omega, 40(4), 521-545.
Rojek, C. (2001). Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books.
Ryan, J. (2008). “The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking. Anthropology MA Thesis”. Wesleyan University. Retrieved from http://www.thevirtualcampfire.org/virtualcampfire.htm
Sanderson, J., & Cheong, P. H. (2010). “Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief over Michael Jackson Online”. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(5), 328–340. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467610380010
Sarfi, M.; Sarfi, T.; Aris, S.; Zohouri, M.; Aeini, B. (2023). Religion and Migration: An Iranian Survey. Migration Letters, 20(S4), 470–480.
Schulz, W. (2004). “Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept”. European Journal of Communication, 19(1), 87–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323104040696
Sofka, C. J. (2009). “Adolescents, Technology, and the Internet: Coping with Loss in the Digital World”. In D. E. Balk & C. A. Corr (Eds.), Adolescent Encounters with Death, Bereavement, and Coping (pp. 155-173). New York: Springer.
Soleymani, N.; Samadi, M.; Khalafian, A. (2020). “Micro-celebrities and Representation of Cultural Capital on Instagram”. Satellite and New Media Studies. No 24. p 83-122. (in Persian)
Tisseron, S. (2011). “Intimite et extimite”. Communications, 1(88), 83–91.
Urbain, J. -D. (1989). “L’archipel des morts. Cimetiere et memoires en occident”. Paris, France: Payot.
Wagner, A. J. M. (2018). “Do Not Click ‘Like’ When Somebody Has Died: The Role of Norms for Mourning Practices in Social Media”. Social Media+Society,4(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117744392
Walter, T. (1999). On Bereavement: The Culture of Grief. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Walter, T. (2008). “The Presence of the Dead in Society”. Paper presented at the 1st conference on Death & Dying in 18-21c Europe, Alba Iulia, Romania.
Walter, T. (2011). “Angels Not Souls: Popular Religion in the Online Mourning for British Celebrity Jade Goody”. Religion, 41, 29–51.
Walter, T., Hourizi, R., Moncur, W., & Pitsillides, S. (2012). “Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? Overview and Analysis”. OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, 64(4), 275–302. https://doi.org/10.2190/OM.64.4
Wong, D. T. L., & Patlamazoglou, L. (2020). “Bereavement and Coping Following the Death of Personally Significant Popular Musician”. Death Studies, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1809031
Zokaee, M.S. (2020). The Art of Qualitative Research: from Problem-Solving to Writing the Results. Tehran: Nashre Agah. (in Persian)
Cultural Studies & Communication
Volume 19, Issue 71
July 2023
Pages 37-76
Files
Share
How to cite
Statistics