The Language of Illness and Death on Social Media

Abstract

Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. About the Authors ix 1. Throughout this book, the two children will be referred to as Laerke and MIV.

Involuntary childlessness online: Digital lifelines through blogs and Instagram

“…By discussing platformed sociality as a pivotal part of the existential struggle and process of IC for numerous sufferers, this article has also attempted to widen the perspective of existential media studies that have predominantly dealt with illness, mourning, and death (Andersson, 2017;Lagerkvist, 2017b;Lagerkvist and Andersson, 2017;Stage and Hougaard, 2018). IC is imbued with particular existential implications, as the state is stigmatized, silenced, and concealed.…”

“…TTC environments, as I will argue, form existential media and present existential arenas yet unexplored, as they relate to a stigmatized and silenced state. TTC communication further relates to that which did not or is yet to happen, thus presenting other and different existential issues than those explored in previous studies, focused on death and illness (Andersson, 2017;Lagerkvist, 2017b;Lagerkvist and Andersson, 2017;Stage and Hougaard, 2018).…”

Interjections, phonetics, and the body

“…Facebook RIP pages (Klastrup 2015). Th e digital aff ect cultures of these gatherings can be investigated and understood through diff erent kinds of language used by their participants (Stage & Hougaard 2018).…”

“…Ethnographic data show that the almost real-time experience of a child's death -even though this was mediated by social media -aff ected the participants and provoked a reaction, leading them to transmit aff ects in various ways, e.g. in-the-heat-of-the-moment responses with tokens like hesitations dots, emojis and interjections (Stage & Hougaard 2018).…”

“…Th ese fi ndings were surprising since the serious theme might have been expected to cause a more solemn and ritualised language use. For the sake of completeness, it should be added that the participants also wrote about their empathy and condolences in a less aff ective and more formal way (Stage & Hougaard 2018); but in this article the focus is on the aff ective perspective. Th us, the following phonetic analysis of the interjections concentrates on the interaction between the speech organs, the breath and the whole body.…”