Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

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Telematics and Informatics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tele

R.I.P.: Remain in perpetuity. Facebook memorial pages

Rebecca Kern a,, Abbe E. Forman b,1, Gisela Gil-Egui c,2
a
b
c

Manhattan College, Department of Communication, Manhattan College Parkway, Riverdale, NY 10471, USA
Temple University, 414 Wachman Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road, 222 Donnarumma Hall, Fairfield, CT 06824, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 21 March 2012
Keywords:
Facebook
Social networks
Death
Grief
Memorialization
Rituals
Online community
Identity

a b s t r a c t
Facebook is not only a virtual space to commune with the living, it is also a place to honor,
memorialize, and engage in dialogs with the deceased. This study examines 550 memorial
pages on Facebook for age, gender, race, and cause of death of the memorialized, as well as
to whom the communication is addressed. Where ritualistic memorials and mourning
practices usually occur in cemeteries or at the sites of accidents, memorial sites on Facebook offer an alternative space to mourn that is public, collective, and with archival capabilities. Individual dialogs and memories in this alternative space are not private, and often
involve direct communications with the deceased. In this way, the dead never really die;
rather perpetually remain in a digital state of dialogic limbo.
! 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years, social networking via MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook has become increasingly popular as a way to interact with people virtually and globally. Online communities bring people together from all lifestyles, from all over the globe,
to share knowledge, entertainment, and collective dialogs. Facebook is now the most popular website in the world based on
unique visitors (Reisinger, 2010). Facebook has attracted at least 35% of all web users with 540 million unique visitors during
the month of April, 2010. Another website known as Facebakers.com aggregates data provided by Facebook to assess penetration rates in countries around the world as well as a plethora of demographic information. Interestingly, although the
United States ranks first in number of Facebook users with 140,475,700, as of early October, 2010, the US ranks eighteenth
in Facebook penetration at 45.2%. In contrast, Vatican City ranks number one in the same category as of September 8, 2010, at
91.6% in penetration but boasts only 760 users.3 Some additional demographic information shows that 54.3% of Facebook users
identify as female and the fastest growing population is the age group of 55 and above with 922.7% increase between 2009 and
2010 (Corbett, 2010).
With continued exponential growth in its user base, Facebook is fertile ground for researchers seeking to understand
many types of behavior including the building and maintenance of communities. Most social networking sites, Facebook included, begin by focusing and marketing themselves to a niche market and subsequently moving beyond it (Papacharissi,
2009). Facebook constitutes itself as a place for people to connect and share, and a place to form online communities and
engage in discussion.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 718 862 3847; fax: +1 718 862 3846.
1
2
3

E-mail addresses: Rebecca.kern@manhattan.edu (R. Kern), abbe.forman@gmail.com (A.E. Forman), ggil@fairfield.edu (G. Gil-Egui).
Tel.: +1 484 995 7300; fax: +1 215 204 5082.
Tel.: +1 203 254 4000x3043; fax: +1 203 254 4131.
Penetration data is constantly updated by Facebakers at http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/order/penetration.

0736-5853/$ - see front matter ! 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2012.03.002

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

Facebook is also a place to commune with, and about, the dead in a public forum. Two distinct page types exist for people
who have died: memorial pages established by loved ones/friends and the original Facebook pages of members who have
passed. Facebook friends to/of these pages can, and do, continue to post comments to the deceased and have dialogs with
each other. In addition, through their posts, the friends collectively remember the deceased, engaging in ritualistic behaviors akin to behaviors performed at wakes, burials, and cemetery visits. The difference is that these discussions and rituals
are public, virtual, eternal, and direct. These friends, or mourners, engage in what Ricoeur (2004) noted as the third level of
memory about the dead, the dialog between the mourner and deceased. Ricoeur argued that memorialization of the deceased occurs within and by the mourner, between members of a group, and between the mourner and the deceased.
The dead never really die; but rather are perpetually sustained in a digital state of dialogic limbo.
Scholars have researched online communities in a variety of forms and forums. Much of the previous research on or about
Facebook has examined its use and effectiveness in educational fora (Boon and Sinclair, 2009), cognitive development in
young people (Walther et al., 2009), self-expression and identity development (Livingstone, 2008; Martinez Aleman and
Wartman, 2008), or the uses and gratifications of teen and college student engagement with this interaction tool (Debatin
et al., 2009). Others have examined the use of Facebook as a public relations tool in political campaigns (Bortree and Seltzer,
2009; Johnson and Perlmutter, 2009). Very few studies have examined cultural behaviors and rituals across a broader audience and the use/value of such behavior for the participants. Of particular interest is how technology provides a forum for
rituals otherwise performed in private, non-mediated environments. Additionally of interest, is how the creation, maintenance, and participation in In Memoriam pages both creates and encourages community.
This study builds upon previous studies of online and offline communities, by examining memorial Facebook pages as
evidence of participation in this public remembering of the dead. Using content analysis as a methodology, this study explores such pages for their frequency, voice, and audience. In addition, this paper asks the following questions. What commonalities or differences do the pages share? Who administers the page and for how long? To whom is the communiqu
directed?
The literature review that follows provides a framework for the analysis proposed here, by examining the concept/phenomenon of Facebook memorial pages through the lenses of scholarly work on collective memory, as well as on Internet
(Web-based) community and culture. First, we offer a brief presentation of the private and public rituals tied to death
and mourning, and the ways in which collective mourning occurs. Formation of Facebooks memorial pages are situated between en masse collective memory and private sites of remembering, creating a hybrid, and mediated environment for sustainable and everlasting mourning. Moreover, we argue that memorial pages act as mediated site of direct communication
with the deceased.

2. Literature review
2.1. Public and private mourning rituals
Death is one great common denominator of humankind; it happens to everyone. Mourning rituals for death also exist
across cultural borders. While individual cultures across the globe perform mourning rituals differently, including expressions of emotion, some form of reverence or bereavement exists for the deceased across the board (Huntington and Metcalf,
1979; Laungani and Young, 1997). In many cases, mourning rituals can be elaborate, lengthy affairs, where those connected
to the deceased commune in celebration, in silence, in viewing, in feast, or in some other form of communal gathering.
Mourning serves many potential functions, some which affect the mourner and some of which are believed to affect the
deceased. Crissman (2004) noted that wakes began as a waking of the dead (p. 64), where mourners did not believe the
body had truly died and could still be awoken. Belief in an afterlife for the deceased provides a strong impetus for the living
to ensure the proper steps are taken to deliver that body to its final destination. Expressions of grief aid in the process of
mourning, as they show, to the deceased and to others, the importance of the life that is gone. Becker and Knudson
(2003) suggested that mourning is a responsibility, a heroic act (p. 713), a need to carry on memories of the life of the person, particularly if that life affected the mourner in a positive and meaningful way.
Death is generally a private, an increasingly secular event. Claiming a growing penetration of humanist ideals no life
after death, Walter (1997) argued that, Modern death is characterized by tension and accommodation between Christian
ideals and secular, rational processes (p. 166). In other words, in an increasingly secular society there is still belief in an
afterlife, whether Christian or another religion. Despite claims about an increase in humanism and about a decrease in
the belief of an afterlife, there is still a reserved apprehension surrounding death and its rituals (Parkes, 1997). Death is a
taboo topic, rarely discussed publicly, and if it is, then it is mostly relative to a public figure.
Privatization and medicalization of death in the middle to late 19th century moved death from the home to a semi-public
locale. Due to an increase in funerary parlors and hospitals, and fears of illness, dying and death were no longer events secluded to the home (Humphreys, 1981; Huntington and Metcalf, 1979). This shift made death and dying a removed event, an
industry run by men doctors, embalmers, funerary directors. The experience of death was in the post, where invited
mourners come to mourn the deceased, not the dying. The invitees were usually the immediate family, and also those that
had been invited through announcement and those that were closely connected to the deceased (Laungani and Young, 1997).
Wakes and funerals, and even burials, provide visitors a brief chance to mourn and express condolences to the family. These

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

moments of kinship often bring geographically dispersed families together again, much as they served as important social
functions in Western communities through the Victorian eras (Crissman, 2004; Mims, 1998). Death continues to build community, as mourning and the associated cultural rituals provide order, acceptance, and a space for mutual support to those
who are grieving (Mims, 1998).
2.2. Collective memory
Despite the general privatization of death, mourning is not consistently private. Famous and newsworthy people, particularly those with a fan base, are often mourned publicly. Walter (2001) noted that British mourners of Princess Dianas death
laid flowers and created shrines in the same places the townspeople gathered for other unscheduled events, thus creating a
materialization of a [close-knit, public] society (p. 507), while also giving those not normally involved in the intimate
grieving process a chance to mourn (Schwab, 2004). These public figures, through mass media, become intimate figures
in our lives, and they are mourned as a personal loss (Gibson, 2007). Extensive literature on the notion of parasocial interaction, as proposed by Horton and Wohl (1956) and subsequent authors, reiterate this sense of intimate, unidirectional connection that media users frequently establish with certain celebrities and public figures. According to Jorgensen-Earp and
Lanzilotti (1998) public shrines for the average person occur when a child died and/or there was a violent death, particularly
because these deaths are often made public in the news, offering a creative means to seek both individual solace as well as
collective redemption (p. 151).
These moments of gathering, the forming of a community however disparate, create a collectivity of memorializing.
Members of society collectively remember a public figure as the public figure played some important role in their lives.
As a group, they highlight that which is most important, writing (or rewriting) a socio-cultural history of the individual.
The group consciousness recalls individual memories that help to support the constructed social memory (Halbwachs,
1992; Zelizer, 1995), satisfying a need for both the individual and the collective in the remembrance process. With private
citizens, the collective members are only more intimate and the site becomes more private.
By not having to deal with the body and the physicality of death, mourners remove themselves from the death of the individual, and instead focus on the life of the individual (Humphreys, 1981). Once the body has been buried or cremated, memorialization of the deceased commences through objects of remembrance. Families and friends create memory books and
photo albums to remember dead loved ones, kept in private spaces occasionally opened for momentary reflection (Brennan,
2008; Hallam and Hockey, 2001). Wakes and funerals, burials and cremation, memory books, and memorials all are ways for
the living to mourn the loss of the deceased, but also provide a platform for ensuring the physical and spiritual body be cared
for in a respectful and loving manner. Becker and Knudson (2003) argue that mourning and its objects not only fulfill our
emotional needs, but that we are also responding to the expectation of the dead that we pay attention to them, that we
honor them or simply notice what is happening to them (p. 712). Tombstones and urn vaults give mourners a place to visit
the dead and decorate a shrine in their honor, such as with flowers and stones. In cemeteries, which are technically public
spaces, people mourn privately, and the ritualistic decorations flowers, wreaths, stones are private shrines to the deceased. Women in particular, Secomb (1999) argued, perform obsequial and commemorative functions for the dead (p.
112), due to their inherent connection with the giving of life. In his study, Brennan (2008) found the women were far more
likely to sign condolence books than men were, further confirming the gendered slant surrounding performances of grieving
(see also Field et al., 1997). These sites of mourning also provide a public place to have a private dialog with the dead, either
internally or externally. For as Ricoeur (2004) noted, memories exist in three spheres, with the individual, the collective, and
something else in between, an inter-temporal plane. The individual and collective exist in a temporal and historical place,
while the inter-temporal sphere includes new narration, formed through sub-conscious dialogs and dream states. These
memories are not necessarily based in the facts of a course of events or actual lived experiences; rather, they are fictionalizations created within oneself. Memories form partly through private consciousness initiated by and feeding a psychological
dialog, potentially spurring collective consciousness. Ricouers understanding of collective memory is essential, because
interactions with the self, the group, and the deceased create levels of dialog and memories.
Technology has increased the ability to expand the size and depth of memorializations for dead loved ones, even allowing
people to share pictures and condolences from afar, but the sharing is still mostly private. Disruption of the practice of
mourning death privately within tight knit communities occurs through increasing engagement in public spaces, such as online social networking sites. These spaces offer a place to mourn collectively, where there is a potential for dialog and constant evolution of memory, it is processual (Zelizer, 1995, p. 218). Zelizer coined the term processual to indicate that
collective memory is a phenomenon that is constantly building, evolving, and moving forward in time. Online communities
and social networking sites contribute to the eternal memory of the deceased and are a public space to demonstrate grief and
loss.
2.3. Internet and community
There are many social network sites (SNSs) to be found on the World Wide Web. As an aggregate, SNSs such as MySpace,
Friendster, Facebook, etc. are hardly exclusionary. In other words, there is an SNS for almost everyone who wants one. Papacharissi (2009) reported on three specific SNSs and their different populations: LinkedIn catering to the professional user,
ASmallWorld meeting the needs of the extremely affluent and exclusive user, and Facebook for any user that wants to join.

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

However, Facebook was not always a site open to everyone. Facebook started in 2004 as an exclusive site meant only for
Harvard University students (Grasmuck et al., 2009). After opening the site to other university students, Facebook expanded
in 2005 to include high school students and in 2006 opened its doors to commercial organizations (Zhao et al., 2008).
Most insights into online behavior as indicators of offline behavior as well as political, religious, and cultural studies have
used an aggregate model of SNSs rather than a study of one individual site such as Facebook or MySpace. Social capital (Ellison et al., 2007) as well as identity (Zhao et al., 2008; Grasmuck et al., 2009; Forman et al., 2011) have been fruitful research
areas. Identity and social capital are areas that feed well into the study of community in SNSs, and in this case, Facebook.
Stone (1981) stated that identity was comprised of two parts: the claim of an identity made by an individual (identity
announcement) which is then followed by the acknowledgment of the identity by others (identity placement). This underscores the need for the endorsement of others in the foundation of a claimed identity. Taking this one step further, the
most basic definition of social capital refers to the accumulation of resources based on networking and relationships (Ellison
et al.). It is in the blending of social capital and identity that the foundations of online community begin to take shape, or as
boyd and Ellison (2008) described it, a new organizational framework for online communities emerges (p. 219). The larger
the accumulation of social capital, the stronger the identity (or the potential endorsement of others), therefore providing
the foundation for community (in this case, online community). Online community is built through human interaction not
through proximity, which is often the case with traditional community building (Gallant et al., 2007). Each individual (identity) is crucial to the formation of the online community. Therefore, the higher/larger the social capital within the online
community, the stronger the potential for acknowledgment of the individual identities that comprise the online community.
Ironically, online communities fostered by SNSs may at some future point fill the void created by the lack of face-to-face
socializing that is becoming the norm with the proliferation of the Internet (Norris, 2004). Online communities help to create
social capital that runs along a continuum between bridging and bonding. Bridging brings together disparate community
members while bonding tightens an already existing network of people that may have more in common. Norris (2004) found
that online communities created as a support group fell almost equidistant between bridging and bonding, thus creating a
community of people that may already know each other but open to others as well.
An exploration such as the one conducted by this study seeks to articulate existing literature on mourning rituals
and online communities, in order to explain practices around the dead in a popular site like Facebook. We deem this
articulation important for a better understanding of the cultural impact of an online space whose original purpose of
providing a platform to connect with friends is expanding rapidly to include many other dimensions of peoples life
offline.
3. Methodology
For the study of memorial pages in Facebook, we adopted a multimodal approach, combining content analysis and qualitative interpretation. The former allowed us to systematically quantify recurrent demographic characteristics within these
pages regarding their subjects and administrators. The latter allowed us to understand our findings in light of relevant literature about online social networks and cultural practices concerning death and mourning.
Our sample consisted of 550 pages that Facebook retrieved from its site as result of a search using the term RIP. Other
terms connected with memorial pages, such as in memory of, in memoriam, dead, deceased, and passed away
were not considered for this first round of data collection/analysis, but will be included in an upcoming extension of this
study. The size of our sample was determined by Facebooks own returns when conducting our inquiry. When a search in
the social network yields more than 500 returns, the site will automatically top it up at 550 returns. It is not clear for the
authors of this paper what criterion (i.e. regular traffic, date of creation, number of friends) Facebook applies in determining
the pages that get to be seen by users conducting a search and the ones that get excluded. We observed, however, that in a
period of three consecutive weeks is August 2010, the results obtained from searches with the keyword RIP. were stable,
and thus proceed to code R.I.P. pages to determine occurrences of the following categories:
Page dedicated to individual subject:
j
Female
j
Male
j
Cannot be determined
Page dedicated to collective subject (e.g. R.I.P. Soldiers Fallen in Afghanistan).
j
Yes
j
No
Page dedicated to public figure or celebrity
j
Yes
j
No
Pages subject died suddenly (i.e., murder/manslaughter, suicide, car accident). This is determined from information posted
from on the page or from information obtained from a Google search on the pages subject.
j
Yes
j
No/Cannot be determined

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

Age of pages subject:

j
Under 20
j
20 to 25
j
26 to 55
j
Over 55
j
Cannot be determined/mixed (i.e. collective subject)
Race/Ethnicity of pages subject:
j
Caucasian
j
Black
j
Asian
j
Native-American
j
Hispanic
j
Other/mixed (i.e. collective subject)/cannot be determined
Gender of administrator (determined by name of administrator on page, if stated):
j
Female
j
Male
j
Cannot be determined
Country of origin/residence for pages subject (whether explicitly stated on page or determined by Google search).
Language of page:
j
English
j
Non-English (in these cases, information for other coding categories is determine with the help of Googles translator).
j
Mix of English and other language.
We also explored functional aspects of memorial pages through the analysis of postings on a random sub-sample of 50
pages dedicated to non-celebrity individuals within the RIP. group of profiles. Within this sub-sample, we determined the
percentage of postings written in first person (e.g., I miss you so much), second person (e.g., you are now in the company
of angels), and third person (e.g., she was brilliant student and a generous friend), in order to determine whether these
pages on Facebook serve mostly as a venue for grievance/catharsis, conversing with the dead, or preserving/honoring the
memory of the deceased. In the case of postings combining two or more of voices (e.g. first and second person simultaneously), we counted occurrences in all the corresponding categories.
In a preliminary assessment of our data, we noticed a large number of redundant pages dedicated to the same celebrities
and victims of crimes widely covered by the media (e.g. Michael Jackson, or Phoebe Prince4). In this case of redundant pages,
we counted them only under a special category (repeated page), without any other notation for the other coding categories
(gender, age, etc.). In other words, the first time we opened a page dedicated to a dead celebrity, we counted all the corresponding demographic information for the coding categories described above, but not for any other page memorial page dedicated to
the same person, except for a record to count the number of repeats.
To maximize reliability in the coding of the items described above, all the data collection and recording was conducted by
only one of the authors of this paper. Once all the data was recorded and quantified, we proceeded to interpret our findings in
light of the theoretical framework explained earlier in this manuscript.
4. Results
4.1. Demographic profile of memorial pages
Our coding of 550 Facebook pages that included the RIP acronym in their title revealed a diversity of memorial spaces
beyond the private, individual virtual shrines we expected to find. In fact, we also found many pages dedicated to collective
subjects, celebrities, animals, fictional media characters, or places, as shown in Table 1.
As noted in this table, a large group of returned pages were dedicated victims of violent deaths. Surprisingly, many of
these subjects were victimized a second time by people making particularly nasty comments about them, especially when
their death had been reported in by the media. Pages dedicated to more than one person (collective pages) resulted in a higher number of spam postings. On the other hand, we also found a recurrent presence of solidarity postings. These posts were
made by strangers (as frequently stated by the poster through comments such as I did not know Jake personally, but he
seemed a great boy. My heart goes out to his family), who often commented on the sadness of the death.
In terms of demographic distribution of subjects of memorial pages in Facebook, a picture of disparities emerged from our
coding, where young white men from the U.S. are significantly overrepresented in comparison to any other demographic
group. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that pages dedicated to male subjects are about three times as frequent as those
dedicated to female subjects. Table 2 below shows the demographic characteristics of the page subjects returned via our
search.
4
A 15-year old Irish girl who had moved with her family to Massachusetts and committed suicide on January 14, 2010, after months of bullying from school
classmates.

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

Table 1
Types of Facebook RIP Pages (Note: some categories are not mutually exclusive).
Page type

Number of
pages returned

Percentage of
pages returned (%)

Individual subjects
Collective subjects
Things or places
Fictional (human) characters
Animals
Fake memorial content (i.e., hoax, subject did not really die)
Public figures or celebrities (unique occurrences; repeat pages
counted separately)
Repeated pages (e.g., memorial pages dedicated to Michael Jackson)
Victims of violent deaths

316
62
46
8
7
4
92

57.45
11.27
8.36
1.45
1.27
0.72
16.72

138
233

25.09
42.36

Table 2
Demographic Data of RIP Pages subjects.
Number

Percentage (%)

Gender
Male
Female

235
81

42.72
14.72

Age
Under 20 years old
2025 years old
2655 years old
Over 55 years old
Cannot determine age/collective page

159
71
34
24
47

28.90
12.90
6.18
4.36
8.54

Race/Ethnicity
Caucasian
Black
Asian
Hispanic
Native-American
Cannot determine race/ethnicity/mixed/collective page

224
43
9
4
1
49

40.72
7.81
1.63
0.72
0.18
8.90

Considering that a large percentage of memorial pages in Facebook (42.36%) are dedicated to subjects who died suddenly
(i.e. because of a violent crime, suicide, or a car accident), we decided to check real life statistics about violent and sudden
deaths occurrences, to see if our findings reflected in Table 2 show some parallel with numbers in the offline world. Indeed,
when it comes to violent crime rates in the U.S.,5 we found that males are more likely than females to be the victims, according
to data provided by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) at the time of writing this report.6 However, the difference between
male and female victimization in real life is substantially smaller (21.4 and 16.7 for 1000 people over 12 years olds, respectively)
than that suggested by the findings from our analysis. Although our own coding of memorial pages also considered sites for
subjects who died from non-violent deaths, we were, in general, surprised by the sheer differences in number of Facebook pages
dedicated to dead male and female subjects.
Another incongruence between real life statistics and the results from our own analysis emerged in regards to race: while
our results revealed that pages dedicated to white subjects outnumbered by a large margin those dedicated to non-white
ones, data from the U.S. DOJ shows that the rate of black victims of violent crimes almost doubles that of white victims
(10.3 against 5.7 for 1000 people over 12 years old in 20077). Yet our findings reflect similar racial/ethnic disparities to that
characterizing Facebook users, a network where 74% of users are white, and only 26% belong to other racial/ethnic groups (14%
are black, 5% Hispanic, 5% Asian, and 1% mixed or undetermined).
When it comes to age, our findings align more closely with real life statistics: the majority of memorial pages subjects is
under 25 years of age, which seems to resonate with DOJs data indicating that teens and young adults have the highest rate
of victimization for violent crimes.8 Our numbers also resonate with data for Facebook users, whose members comprise a large
percentage of subscribers under 25 years of age (40.1%), although older users are currently the fastest growing group within this
social network.9
5
Although the memorial pages we coded in Facebook were generated in different countries, most of them were dedicated to subjects from the U.S., as
explained later in this section.
6
Data for 2008 available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/vsxtab.cfm.
7
Data available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/racetab.cfm.
8
See data at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/vagetab.cfm.
9
http://www.checkfacebook.com.

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

Table 3
Country of origin of RIP Facebook pages subject.
Country of origin

Number of
pages returned

Percentage of
pages returned (%)

USA
United Kingdom
Serbia
Australia
Albania
Canada
Croatia
France
Greece
Ireland
Czech Republic
Denmark
India
Nigeria
Poland
Philippines
Sweden
New Zealand

149
101
10
9
9
7
6
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2

27.09
18.36
1.81
1.63
1.63
1.27
1.09
0.90
0.72
0.72
0.54
0.54
0.36
0.36
0.36
0.36
0.36
0.36

It was often difficult to determine the gender and other demographic information of the administrators of RIP Facebook
pages. However, we were able to identify an almost equal amount of male and female administrators, despite the fact that, in
a large majority of pages, there was no information at all about administrators. On 29 pages (5.27%), the administrator was
clearly identified as female, whereas 28 pages (5.09%) had male administrators. In addition, while most pages were in English, 36 pages (6.54%) had a mix of English and another language. Another 51 pages (9.27%) were written entirely in a language other than English. The results of this study show that RIP pages are not a United States phenomenon. In fact, the term
RIP, which is an English acronym (Rest in Peace), was used to identify many pages including pages written exclusively in
a language other than English. Table 3 below outlines the country of origin for those pages whose subjects nationality we
were able to establish.
Several additional countries were represented by single pages, each contributing 0.18% toward the total number of pages
returned: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, Iraq, Italy, Jamaica, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mauritius,
Morocco, Peru, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and Vietnam. Nevertheless, digital divide issues became, in
general, apparent in our analysis, as most memorial pages returned in our search were hosted primarily in countries with
fairly developed telecommunications infrastructures and more opportunities for digital access.
4.2. Voice and function of memorial pages
The majority of pages returned showed that people posting to the RIP pages are writing in the second person (e.g., watch
over us from heaven). Pages written in the second person outnumber first and third person pages by a margin of nearly 2:1,
comprising 42.26% of pages returned. Pages in first (e.g. I miss you so much) and third person (e.g., she was a bright and
kind person) totaled 24.78% and 26.72% respectively. This finding seems to underscore a preferential use of memorial pages
within Facebook as a way to converse with the dead, rather than as a space to share memories of the dead with others (community) or as a venue for personal grieving and catharsis. However, we must note that, while postings in second persons
voice dominated, all the pages we coded had a combination of the first, second, and third person postings.
Interestingly, postings made by strangers who did not know the deceased usually adopted a third persons voice, either to
show solidarity (e.g. she seemed a sweet girl; Im praying for her family) or to offend and provoke (e.g., thank goodness for
dead sluts). The fact that these posts by strangers rarely adopt first or seconds person voice, indicates that comments left on
Facebooks memorial pages, regardless of their intention (kindness or violence), are almost never directed towards the dead,
but toward their survivors. A prevalence of postings in the second person for most of the pages coded in our analysis suggests
that Facebooks main function as a tool for networking and socialization is extended beyond the realm of the living, to enable
a vicarious form of interaction with those who have passed away.
5. Discussion and Conclusion
These memorial pages and their posted messages provide archival evidence of contemporary practice of mourning, particularly in an age of high mobility, greater technological access, and virtual social connectivity. Similar to tombs in the offline world, memorial pages for the dead in Facebook provide a place to visit with dead loved ones, but unlike the former,
these online places of remembrance provide platform where individual conversations with the dead are permanently recorded and publicly displayed.

R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

The signification of these memorial sites is the ways in which they are used to materialize memory, following Hallam and
Hockey (2001) discussion of material objects as a way to keep the dead close. This may be particularly true with violent or
premature death, since there may not be any immediate material effects (clothing, jewelry, photos) from the moments before passing, such as with a solider killed in war. Just as with a viewing, memorial sites show the deceased at peace and not in
moments of pain or illness (Huntington and Metcalf, 1979); however, these sites do not require the mourner to see or even
be physically near the deceased, making mourning potentially free of fear or extreme emotional grief.
The materialization of death in a mediated, but removed way, may explain some of the unforeseen results. Evidence of
solidarity from people who posted on the memorial pages, but did not know the deceased was unexpected; however, it does
follow ritualistic behavior observed for public deaths, where a shrine or memorial is erected in a public space, or for violent
deaths of those taken before their time (Jorgensen-Earp and Lanzilotti, 1998). The majority of the pages found were memorials for individuals, particularly males, who died before the age of 25, and often in a violent or very sudden manner. In addition, there was an expectation that women would more likely be the administrators of such pages, since women are, as
Secomb (1999); Hallam and Hockey (2001) have noted, the primary keepers of the dying and memorializing of the deceased
life. From what could be determined through gender self-disclosure, page administrators were equally male and female,
which parallels online usage but not gender demographics of social networking sites which trend female (54.3% of Facebook
users, as of August 2010). It may be that Facebook, while a public forum, is used in private settings, such as ones home. The
taboos associated with death, mourning, and emotion, are lessened because the user remains behind a virtual cloak. Men and
women can equally share emotion and the social responsibility of mourning in a real, but disassociative way. Physical
expressions of grief, such as crying, are frequently associated with the feminine, and are considered unacceptable behavior
for men, but written expressions of grief are devoid of the physical, making grieving in this way culturally acceptable. Memorial pages are still removed from the reality and corporeal nature of death and dying, but given their large and growing number, the topic of death and dying appears less of a taboo. More research into the specific nature and content of the postings
will illuminate how much less of a taboo it has become.
The ability that Facebook pages offer to its users to connect from a safe distance with death and the dead highlights a blur
between virtual and real spaces which, in addition to legitimizing more open, public displays of emotions, seems to facilitate
transgressions not commonly materialized in traditional funeral rites. For example, during our coding, we ran into a number
of memorial pages dedicated to fictional TV characters, places or things that do not exist anymore (e.g., R.I.P. the become a
fan function on Facebook), as well as into pages faking the death of celebrities or public figures who are actually alive. In
addition, as noted before, frequently strangers take the liberty to voice insensitive or kind comments in the page of a deceased subject, in ways they would probably not do directly to their relatives in a real burial. A more recent instance of
the blurring line between real and virtual worlds within Facebook with regards to attitudes towards the question of death,
took place in Christmas Day of 2010, when a British woman announced her imminent suicide on her personal page. Many of
the 1000+ online friends that Simone Back, 42, had on Facebook either dismissed her last posting (Took all my pills be dead
soon so bye bye every one) or made cruel jokes about it, perhaps thinking Ms. Back was not serious about her
announcement.10
Beyond the transgressions allowed by the virtual/real intersections in Facebook, facilitated by the spatial distance provided by this online tool, another trend, one of dialogical interactions with the deceased, was corroborated in our analysis.
In fact, one of the more significant findings was the second persons voice used in a majority of the postings. Writing in the
second person is a direct communication from the mourner to the deceased, and highlights that there exists a plane of memory specifically between the mourner and the deceased (Ricoeur, 2004). It is also evidence that rituals of mourning are performed as a duty to the deceased (Becker and Knudson, 2003). This goes beyond the cemetery as a public/private venue
because memorial pages and postings on Facebook are private statements or remembrances in a public venue, clearly intended to be seen by others. While this communiqu may aid in the recollection of other posters, it really serves as a direct
link for communication with the dead. This seems particular important because the majority of deaths were sudden and the
deceased young, leaving the mourner little time to prepare, as with a lengthy illness or with age. This is also important because these direct communications do not appear to be followed by additional commentary, such as responses to postings.
While the entire memorial page is a site of collective memory, there lacks a consistent dialog among the living, one of the
main criteria in establishing collectivity (Halbwachs, 1992). Individual posts are largely direct dialogs to the deceased, however, the deceased cannot aid in recollections of memory. In the posters mind, Facebook is a place to commune with the
dead in a space where the communication may actually be received. The dead live in the virtual cloud, and can hear or read
the messages from the living. This draws the senderreceiver model of communication into question as the model assumes
reception of the message with the potential for response. From a purely corporeal and tangible sense, there is no response,
unless assumed through spiritual communication. This, again, highlights the sustained belief in an afterlife despite any religious inclinations of the posters to these pages, or despite the increase in secularity brought about by modernity and mass
media.
The sites and posts are archival statements, which embody all levels of memory. Postings are also a demonstration of reverence and duty to the deceased. While there may not be much dialog among the visitors to these sites, they are commu-

10
Details of this news story can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344281/Facebook-suicide-None-Simone-Backs-1-082-online-friendshelped-her.html.

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R. Kern et al. / Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 210

nicating. Each post is visible to all who visit the page, so each visitor is potentially aware of the level of grief or duty a mourner has to the deceased, creating an opportunity to perform ritualistic behavior constantly. Alternatively, as the results show,
postings can be antagonistic or show hatred for the deceased. Given the emotional nature of the pages as memorials to the
dead, these antagonistic comments seem to also increase the need to show displays of support, thus creating, as Walter
(2001) and others (Gibson, 2007; Schwab, 2004) found with celebrity and public figure memorials, a continual place of support and devotion.
In sum, it appears that Facebook memorial pages aid in the bereavement of the deceased, and allows a continuing space to
engage with the deceased in a mediated, virtual and spiritual space. If the dead are virtually memorialized, they never really
die. The more in-depth the memorial and the greater its permanence, the more the deceased remain with the living. Virtual
forms of memorialization serve as a more permanent means to continue the life of the deceased, and are potentially more
effective ways to commune with the living in an afterlife. What additional cultural functions memorial pages and posting
to these pages serve represent an intriguing path for future research on social networking sites.
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