Uncommon Ground's presentation on research updates (data with initial results and analyses).

1. Digital Bereavement
Articulating the Unheard Utterances...
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2. Grief
 Universal emotion
 Traditionally:
 Formal public gatherings
 Backstage emotion
 Recently:
 Digital bereavement
 Frontstage utterances
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3. Memorializing Facebook
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4. The Big Question
How does the use of
Facebook profiles change depending
upon the living-state of the profile holder?
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5. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
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6. Profile Demographics
 Gender
 11 males
 1 female
 Circumstances
 11 sudden deaths
 1 chronic illness (treated as a special case)
 Age
 17 to 32 years
uncommonground4500.blogspot.com Spring 2010

7. Process
 Sampling method
 1 year of pre-death wall posts
 All post-death wall posts
 LIWC, SPSS, Wmatrix
 Prominent punctuation, words, & parts of speech
 Word categories
uncommonground4500.blogspot.com Spring 2010

8. Relevant Theories
 Continuing Bond
 People maintain a changed but continued
relationship with the deceased
 Uses and Gratifications
 People actively choose to use certain media to
gratify specific needs
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9. Predictions (for posts after death)
 Complexity/Formality  Verb Tense
 More - words per sentence,  More - past
words per post, long words (>6  Less - future
letters), periods, commas,
exclusives  Pronoun Usage
 Intimacy
 More - personal pronouns
(I, you, we)
 More - family, friend, affect
 Other
 Emotion  More - religion, death,
 More - positive space, time, relativity,
motion
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10. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
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11. LIWC Results
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12. LIWC Results
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13. Wmatrix Results
Top Results Interesting Results
Pre-Death Post-Death Pre-Death Post-Death
<name> miss lol miss
lol you haha you
haha love yeah love
is always hey always
if were hows peace
's and dude never
get will should smile
well peace yea all
yeah much actually beautiful
ithaca rip pic memories
going missed yo heart
soon rest kinda believe
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14. DESIGN IMPLICATIONS
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15. uncommonground4500.blogspot.com Spring 2010

16. Questions?
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17. Contact Information
BLOG
http://uncommonground4500.blogspot.com
EMAIL
uncommonground4500@gmail.com
uncommonground4500.blogspot.com Spring 2010

18. References
 Hume, J., & Bressers, B. (2009). Obituaries online: New connections with the
living -- and the dead. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 60(3), 255-271.
http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?
referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,6;journal,1,238;linkingpublicationresults,
1:300329,1
 Lombard, M., & Selverian, M. E. M. (2008). Telepresence after death. Presence:
Teleoper. Virtual Environ., 17(3), 310-325. http://astro.temple.edu/~lombard/
teaching/m9505materials/P2006_Lombard3.doc
 M. Massimi paper summary/abstract of his thesis: http://
research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/connect/CSCW_10/docs/
p521.pdf
 Bruflat, R. Gone, but not forgotten: Long-term communciation strategies of
bereaved families. Conference Papers -- National Communciation. http://
www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/9/1/2/1/
p191217_index.html
uncommonground4500.blogspot.com Spring 2010