The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives

This book explores how social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp 'accidentally' enable and nurture the creation of digital afterlives, and, importantly, the effect this digital inheritance has on the bereaved. Debra J. Bassett offers a holistic exploration of this phenomenon and presents qualitative data from three groups of participants: service providers, digital creators, and digital inheritors.

This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to sociologists, cyber psychologists, philosophers, death scholars, and grief counsellors. But Bassett's book can also be seen as a canary in the coal mine for the 'intentional' Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI) and their race to monetise the dead. This book provides an understanding of the profound effects uncontrollable timed posthumous messages and the creation of thanabots could have on the bereaved, and Bassett's conception of a Digital Do Not Reanimate (DDNR) order and a voluntary code of conduct couldprovide a useful addition to the DAI.

Auteur

Debra J. Bassett received her PhD from the University of Warwick and is a visiting fellow at the University of Bath. Her qualitative research focuses on how, through avatar creation, blogs, vlogs and social network sites, people are creating and nurturing bonds with the dead, and how this human-computer interaction may affect how people grieve.

Contenu

1. Introduction: Contextualising Digital Afterlives2. The Service Providers - Both Intentional and Accidental3. A Philosophical Detour4. From Digital Footprints to the Ultimate Selfie: The Experiences and Motivations of Digital Creators5. Why Do Digital Afterlives Matter? The Experiences and Motivations of Digital Inheritors6. Losing the Data of the Dead and Expanding Existing Models of Bereavement7. The Future of Digital Death8. Final Thoughts and Reflection