Virtual homage to the dead: An analysis of digital memorials in the social web

Abstract

Considering that many real-world cultural practices are now migrating to virtual environments, the expression of mourning and bereavement is also being imported to the virtual world, by means of the so-called digital memorials, supported by increasingly new and complex technologies. In this paper, we undertake a literature review on real and digital memorials, as well as social networks. Then, through empirical observation of digital memorials in Brazil, we investigate if they have characteristics of the social web. Next, by means of an interaction test and a questionnaire, we analyze how users feel when interacting with digital memorials and their evaluation on the functionalities of those applications. Finally, we approach the difficulties found when studying this kind of tools and our perspectives for future works. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.