Digital Death and Spectacular Death

Johanna Sumiala () and Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Additional contact information
Johanna Sumiala: Department of Media and Communication Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 54, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland
Michael Hviid Jacobsen: Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-11

Abstract: Throughout human history, individuals, communities and societies have always had to confront and tackle the problem of death. Consequently, death remains a topic of social scientific relevance, highlighting the need for its study and for theorising around it. This article analyses the development of the social scientific study of death and dying, taking inspiration from Philippe Ariès’s historical stages to discuss the recent developments in the field, namely the study of digital death . The article begins with a discussion of the visibility of death in modern society in the context of spectacular death . The analysis emphasises its four dimensions: mediatisation, commercialisation, re-ritualisation and the revolution in end-of-life care. The article moves on to discuss the emergence of digital death as the current stage and reflects on its similarities to spectacular death and its transformation of public imaginaries around death in contemporary society. The article concludes with a reflection on future developments in the field, specifically the emergence and study of artificial intelligence (AI) in digitalised death culture.

Keywords: Ariès; historical stages; ideal types; spectacular death; digital death (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/2/101/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/2/101/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:2:p:101-:d:1334708

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().