Le Mémorial du Monde aux victimes des attentats du 13 novembre 2015. Le portrait numérique comme objet de mémoire, de deuil et d'émotion

Online memorials as a platform for empathy journalism

“…The portraits written about the victims who died on 13 November in Paris were a way of instantaneously preserving a genre of happiness that was both individual and collective. The happiness portrayed in the images, interspersed with bittersweet and compassionate anecdotes (Mariau, 2019), combined with the emotional involvement of the journalists and the design chosen for the online memorial, might dispose readers to interpret the portraits and their formal aesthetics as part of an empathic journalism.…”

“…Until now, studies of the types of memorials that journalists have created have concentrated primarily on analyses of portraits and their narratives (cf. Mariau, 2019; Miller, 2003; Wrona, 2005). They have not, however, focused on the environments in which they were produced and received.…”

“…The happiness portrayed in the images, interspersed with bittersweet and compassionate anecdotes (Mariau, 2019), combined with the emotional involvement of the journalists and the design chosen for the online memorial, might dispose readers to interpret the portraits and their formal aesthetics as part of an empathic journalism.…”

“…The empathic articulation of proximity—to the victims, but also to Paris and France—as well as the idea of an unfinished life and the personal narratives (most victims were young) underpin the disruptive nature of the events on an individual and collective level: “Finally the biographic narrative of these portraits reminds us of the rupture and the inexistent futures that resulted from the attacks, as well as projects that could never be realized” (Mariau, 2019: 89). In other words, the violence of the attacks is also symbolically reinforced here by the manner with which the portraits are written.…”