Myers Faith, Donley Sarah
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL, USA.
Omega (Westport). 2024 Nov;90(1):440-458. doi: 10.1177/00302228221107978. Epub 2022 Jun 12.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the way Americans deal with death and dying. Social distancing restrictions prevented or delayed end of life services for families who lost loved ones to COVID-19. Alternatively, some took to the internet to express their grief through online memorialization. Using content analysis, this study analyzes 200 randomly selected online memorials from the COVID Memorial website, a website created to share the stories of those lost to COVID-19 on social media. Our findings offer insight into memorial author demographics, how memorial authors framed and understood death due to COVID-19, and the COVID-19 pandemic through online memorialization. Two major themes emerged during data analysis, "references to COVID-19 death" and "COVID-specific directives to readers." The former, details how memorial authors framed and understood the death of a loved one to COVID-19. The latter details "advice" or "directives" authors gave to readers about social distancing guidelines and other guidelines meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
新冠疫情改变了美国人对待死亡的方式。社交距离限制措施阻碍或推迟了为因新冠疫情失去亲人的家庭提供的临终服务。另外，一些人通过网络纪念的方式在网上表达他们的悲痛之情。本研究运用内容分析法，对从新冠纪念网站随机选取的200个网上纪念内容进行了分析。该网站旨在在社交媒体上分享因新冠疫情去世者的故事。我们的研究结果有助于深入了解纪念文章作者的人口统计学特征、纪念文章作者如何构建并理解因新冠疫情导致的死亡，以及通过网络纪念来了解新冠疫情。数据分析过程中出现了两个主要主题，即“提及新冠疫情死亡”和“针对读者的新冠疫情特定指引”。前者详述了纪念文章作者如何构建并理解亲人因新冠疫情导致的死亡。后者则详述了作者就社交距离指导方针及其他旨在防止新冠疫情传播的指导方针向读者给出的“建议”或“指引”。
