[Air-L] CFP: Navigating a Networked Death (ICA panel)

[Tamara Kneese]

International Communication Association (ICA) Conference 2014

Seattle, Washington

22-26 May 2014

*CFP: Navigating a Networked Death panel *

>From online memorials to crowdfunding funeral costs, the particular
sociocultural and technological protocols of social network sites (SNS)
undeniably impact experiences of death and mourning. SNS have become major
loci for coping with loss and memorializing loved ones. People can
simultaneously augment existing funerary practices and create new practices
that take advantage of the unique affordances of SNS. As networked and
collaborative forms of mourning extend into our online experiences, SNS may
become a way of intensifying existing social networks, fomenting new bonds,
even while collaborating on, contesting, or negotiating the memory of the
deceased. While recent works have analyzed the specific modes of
interaction on Facebook walls or MySpace memorials, we seek to better
understand the relationships between these online interactions and
on-the-ground relationships either affected or created by these exchanges.
As the novelty of SNS responses to death fades, we must take a closer look
at how these post-mortem social networking practices have become
incorporated into everyday life. We are most interested in the relationship
between the network of grievers and an individual who has died, and how the
deceased becomes a particularly dense node in a constellation of
relationships.

In this panel, we seek to bring together diverse perspectives on a topic
that will affect everyone. As a universal aspect of life, death provides a
lens through which to examine networked social bonds. The presentations in
this panel will discuss the ways in which we might conceptualize links
between online mourning practices and the embodied relationships they
reflect, influence, and produce. Potential papers may explore the use of
social media to plan memorial services, to collectively cope with loss, or
the interactions between different members of an individual’s social circle
on SNS and in face-to-face meetings. Especially pertinent are themes
related to mourning, grief, memorialization, subjectivity, privacy,
authority, collaboration, and affect.

Panel co-chairs: Jed Brubaker, PhD candidate in Informatics at UC Irvine
and Tamara Kneese, PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Culture, and
Communication at New York University.

Please send 150-word abstracts no later than OCTOBER 31, 2013 to
tek234 at nyu.edu and jed.brubaker at uci.edu