Wiring Death: Remembering on the Internet
Abstract
Online networks and digital media have been integrated into contemporary processes of dying and memorialization, changing the social context in which dying takes place and establishing new memory culture. This paper, thus, examines the relation between media and memory through the case of war dead commemoration in Vietnam. As tens of thousands of Vietnamese died in military service during the war, their commemoration has been an important issue both inside and outside academia. This memory of the harsh past continues to be transmitted, historically and psychologically, through generations. Considered to be a flexible, individualized, decentralized, a-historic medium, how has the media environment contributed to the construction, reconstruction and representation of memory in Vietnam? My central argument is that, with a wide range of users, and various tools and forms of communicative interaction, internet-based media enables actors who are not part of the traditional institutions regulating the discourses about the past to constitute remembrance beyond the official narratives promoted by the authorized agents. Also, within such electronic spaces, it is pivotal to highlight the dynamics of memory which overcomes the temporal and spatial distance between the situational of remembering and the past events which are remembered. This feature of online memorialization and mourning practices, hence, poses a question to the philosophy of personal identity. While the dead somehow live on through their online presence, how do specific features of online social networks affect the ontology and embodiment of them?References
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[12] Lagerkvist, Amanda, “New Memory Cultures and Death: Existential Security in the Digital Memory Ecologyâ€, Thanatos, vol.2 2/2013 (Online) available: http://thanatosjournal.files. wordpress.com/2012/12/lagerkvist_newmemorycultures_than222013.pdf (accessed 02 August 2014)
[13] Malarney, Shaun Kingsley, Culture, Ritual, and Revolution in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002
[14] Malarney, Shaun Kingsley, “Festivals and the dynamics of the exceptional dead in northern Vietnamâ€. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38(3), pp. 515-540, 2007
[15] Mosse, George L., Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990
[16] Pelley, Patricia M, Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002
[17] Sade-Beke, L. “Mourning and Memorial Culture on the Internet: the Israeli caseâ€. American Communication Journal, 7, 2004
[18] Roberts, Pamela, “From My Space to Our Space: The Functions of Web Memorials in Bereavementâ€, The Forum, Vol.32, Issue 4, pp. 1-3, Oct/Nov/Dec, 2006
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[20] Schwenkel, Christina, The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009
[21] Walter, Tony, Rachid Hourizi, Wendy Moncu, and Stacey Pitsillides, “Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? Overview and Analysisâ€. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 64(4), pp.275–302, 2011
[22] Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in Europe Cultural History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
[2] Brubaker, Jed R. and Gillian R. Hayes. “We will never forget you [online]: an empirical investigation of postmortem myspace commentsâ€, Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work, ACM, pp.123–132, 2011
[3] Endres, Kirsten W. and Lauser, Andrea, “Contest of commemoration: virgin war martyrs and state memorial and the invocation of the spirit world in contemporary Vietnam†in Endres, Kirsten W. and Lauser, Andrea, Ed., Engaging the spirit world- Popular beliefs and practices in Modern Southeast Asia, New York: Beghanh Books, 2011
[4] Foot, Kirsten, Barbara Warnick and Steven M. Schneider, “Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Frameworkâ€, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), pp. 72–96, 2005.
[5] Geser, Han, “Yours Virtually Forever" Death memorials and Remembrance Sites in the WWWâ€, Sociology in Switzerland, 1998 (Online), available: http://socio.ch/intcom/t_hgeser07. htm (accessed 02 August 2014)
[6] Harju, Anu, “Socially shared mourning: construction and consumption of collective memoryâ€, First International Symposium on Death Online, University of Durham, England, 2014
[7] Hobsbawm, Eric, and Ranger, Terence, Ed., The Invention of the Tradition. Cambridge: Past and Present Publications, 1983
[8] Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Ed., The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001
[9] Kern, Rebecca, Abbe E. Forman and Gisela Gil-Egui, “R.I.P.: Remain in perpetuity. Facebook memorial pagesâ€, Telematics and Informatics, 30(1), pp.2–10, 2013
[10] Klass, Dennis, Steven L. Nickman and Phyllis R. Silverman, Continuing bonds, new understandings of grief, Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, 1996.
[11] Kwon, Heonik, After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006
[12] Lagerkvist, Amanda, “New Memory Cultures and Death: Existential Security in the Digital Memory Ecologyâ€, Thanatos, vol.2 2/2013 (Online) available: http://thanatosjournal.files. wordpress.com/2012/12/lagerkvist_newmemorycultures_than222013.pdf (accessed 02 August 2014)
[13] Malarney, Shaun Kingsley, Culture, Ritual, and Revolution in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002
[14] Malarney, Shaun Kingsley, “Festivals and the dynamics of the exceptional dead in northern Vietnamâ€. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38(3), pp. 515-540, 2007
[15] Mosse, George L., Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990
[16] Pelley, Patricia M, Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002
[17] Sade-Beke, L. “Mourning and Memorial Culture on the Internet: the Israeli caseâ€. American Communication Journal, 7, 2004
[18] Roberts, Pamela, “From My Space to Our Space: The Functions of Web Memorials in Bereavementâ€, The Forum, Vol.32, Issue 4, pp. 1-3, Oct/Nov/Dec, 2006
[19] Rowlands, M., ‘Remembering to forget: Sublimation as sacrifice in war memorials.’ In: Forty, A. and Küchler, S. (eds.), The Art of Forgetting, pp.129-145. Oxford: Berg, 1999
[20] Schwenkel, Christina, The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009
[21] Walter, Tony, Rachid Hourizi, Wendy Moncu, and Stacey Pitsillides, “Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? Overview and Analysisâ€. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 64(4), pp.275–302, 2011
[22] Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in Europe Cultural History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Published
2015-09-15
How to Cite
NGUYEN, Hoa.
Wiring Death: Remembering on the Internet.
Култура/Culture, [S.l.], v. 5, n. 11, p. 65-75, sep. 2015.
ISSN 1857-7725.
Available at: <http://journals.cultcenter.net/index.php/culture/article/view/165>. Date accessed: 23 feb. 2026.
Section
English Articles
Keywords
Memory, Online Memorial, War Martyrs, Vietnam, Deat
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