Unshareable
Non-Sharing Grief and Grievabilities on Social Media
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13018845 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tamara Borovica (0000-0002-7356-9236, RMIT University, corresponding author), Katrin Gerber (0000-0002-5015-6420, RMIT University), L Hjorth (0000-0002-4793-3233, RMIT University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Media + Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2056-3051 • E-ISSN: 2056-3051 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20563051261430718 |
| OpenAlex | W7135009896 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
For death-online scholars, online rituals of loss and death help to challenge and reinforce social and moral order. The digital mediates, remediates and ‘mediatises’ both life and death. While grieving is an individual, internal process, mourning is an external practice that can help to connect us with others. Mourning is culturally specific. It is collective. Through posting eulogies online and sharing experiences of loss, we can enhance our grief literacy through grief vernaculars. The role of the digital in connecting us to informal processes of mourning and memorialisation is vast. However, what about the people who choose not to share online? Who decides not to post their tributes, eulogies and memories online? This article seeks to explore this under-researched phenomenon. Much like ‘non-use’, unshareability and non-sharing are crucial parts of contemporary digital culture. In this article, we investigate experiences of unshareability. Drawing from over 57 interviews with participants dealing with all types of loss and grief, we focus on examples of seven participants who spoke about the complications with sharing and choices not to share. We explore those tensions and how this reflects grievabilities – who is digitally mournable and who is not
Digital Literacy · Digital media · Disenfranchised grief · Focus (optics · Focus group · Grief · Social media · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Mental Health via Writing
Residues of Death
Mediated Memories in the Digital Age
Digital detox
Instagrammatics and digital methods
Can I use TA? Should I use TA? Should I not use TA? Comparing reflexive thematic analysis and other pattern‐based qualitative analytic approaches
Ways of seeing digital disconnection
Funeral and Instagram
Anticipatory Grief in Dementia
A scoping review on the use of social media for personal grief
And Connective Memory
Conceptualizing social media sub-platforms
News is “toxic”
Following you
Grief literacy
Why so quiet? Exploring inhibition in digital public spaces
Introduction to the Special Issue on the Death, Afterlife, and Immortality of Bodies and Data
Grief hypejacking
Careful attunements
From bliss to burden
Grief, choice and digital technology use
Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? Overview and Analysis
Taking a break from social media
Mobiles Facing Death
Creating 'Safe Places' in Social Media
You Can (Not) Say What You Want
Algorithmic Closeness in Mourning
Do not Click 'Like' When Somebody has Died
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |