Networked Self and Birth, Life, Death

Zizi Papacharissi is professor and head of the Communication Department at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her work focuses on the social and political consequences of online media. She has collaborated with Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and has participated in closed consultations with the Obama 2012 election campaign. She sits on the Committee on the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults, funded by the National Academies of Science, the National Research Council, and the Institute of Medicine, and has been invited to lecture about her work on social media in several Universities and Research Institutes in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the US.

• IntroductionZizi PapacharissiNumerical being and non-being: probing the ethos of quantification in bereavement online Amanda LagerkvistCo-Creating Birth and Death on Social MediaTama LeaverImagining the future through the lens of the digital: parents’ narratives of generational changeSonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-RossStorytelling the Self into Citizenship: How Social Media Practices Facilitate Adolescent and Emerging Adult Political LifeLynn Schofield Clark and Regina MarchiFamily life in polymediaMirca MadianouEvery Click You Make, I’ll Be Watching You: Facebook Stalking and Neoliberal InformationIlana GershonFormative Events, Networked Spaces, and the Political Socialization of YouthNeta Kligler-Vilenchik and Ioana LiteratDefying Death: Black Joy as Resistance OnlineCatherine Steele and Jessica LuYoung People and Digital Grief EtiquetteCrystal AbidinDeconstructing Immortality? Identity Work and the Death of David Bowie in Digital MediaJohanna SumialaThe afterlife of softwareMichael Stevenson and Robert W. GehlFrom Personal to Personalized Memory: Social Media as Mnemotechnology Robert Prey and Rik SmitSocial media rituals: the uses of celebrity death in digital cultureJean Burgess, Peta Mitchell and Felix Victor MünchGhosts in the Machines: How Centuries of Technological Play with Death Has Helped Make Sense of LifeWhitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner

"Now that the ‘networked self’ has come of age, we need to deal with existential questions about online personhood, adulthood, and parenthood. Internet technologies are transforming everyday practices revolving around birth, friendship, family life, memory and death. This sparkling collection edited by Zizi Papacharissi highlights many profound aspects of this transformation. An eye-opener for every academic interested in online affects!" -José van Dijck, Utrecht University, The Netherlands