陌生人的社会共悼:中国特色的数字哀悼与持续性联结

Social Mourning from"Strangers":Digital Mourning and Continuous Bonds with Chinese Characteristics

当今社会,数字哀悼行为已成为一种独特的媒介记忆实践。当一些个体生命消逝时,社交媒体上会涌现数以万计陌生人的哀悼,这形成了一种特殊的联结。本研究以“名流”逝者和“平民名人”逝者为案例,以持续性联结理论为视角,探究陌生人数字哀悼已逝公众人物的生成机制、意义和时代价值,并重点讨论中国语境下持续性联结的特色呈现。研究发现,哀悼者基于信息补偿、灵性想象、情感树洞、固定仪式及记忆书写等五种动机建立联结,通过联结重新协商逝者身份以延伸逝者人格,并获得生活指引;联结的公共性和社会性增强了群体经验,让哀悼者享受共同体带来的亲密感和信任感,以仪式对抗遗忘,进而促进公共议题的讨论。持续性联结在中国语境下有特别的时间节律特征,其哀思表达有实用主义倾向。中国特色的联结源于“事死如事生”的死后世界信仰模式,也源于数字技术提供的“永生”想象。这种联结有利于个体应对死亡现象的失去感和迷茫感,是数字时代情感共振的一种方式,也提供了社会信任重建的一种可能。

Nowadays,digital mourning has become a unique way of media memory.When some individual lives are gone,tens of thousands of"strangers"mourn on social media,forming a special bond.This study takes the deceased of“celebrities”and“ordinary celebrities”as cases,and explores the generation mechanism,significance and contemporary value of strangers'digital mourning of the deceased public figures from the perspective of the theory of Continuing Bonds,focusing on the characteristics of the continuing bonds in the Chinese context.The study finds that mourners establish bonds based on five motives:information compensation,spiritual imagination,emotional tree-hole,fixed rituals,and memory writing,through which they renegotiate the deceased's identity in order to extend the deceased's personality and obtain guidance for their lives;the public and social nature of connections strengthens the group experience,allowing mourners to enjoy the sense of intimacy and trust brought by the community,and to fight against forgetfulness through rituals,which in turn facilitates the discussion of public issues.The continuing bonds in the Chinese context are characterized by a particular temporal rhythm,and its expression of mourning has a tendency towards pragmatism.The bonds with Chinese characteristics originate from the post life world belief model of"death is like life",as well as the"eternal"imagination provided by digital technology.These bonds are beneficial for individuals to cope with the sense of loss and confusion caused by the phenomenon of death.It is a way of emotional resonance in the digital age and also provides a possibility for social trust reconstruction.