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Communicating Death and Support
PP 566
Bereaved Parents’ Online Grief Communities: De-Tabooing Practices or Relationbuilding Grief-Ghettos?
D. Refslund Christensen
1
, K. Sandvik
2
, Y. Hård af Segerstad
3
, D. Kasperowski
4
1
Aarhus University, School for Communication and Culture, Aarhus, Denmark
2
University of Copenhagen, Dept of Media- Cognition and Communication, Copenhagen S, Denmark
3
University of Gothenburg, Department of Applied Information Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
4
University of Gothenburg, Department of Philosophy- Linguistics and Theory of Science, Gothenburg, Sweden
Abstract Parents may talk about their children extensively, as long as they are alive, but expressing the same kind of parental practice is taboo, once your
child is dead (at least in the Nordic countries). This limits bereaved parents’ means for coping with and interpersonally communicating about their loss as
well as their ability to establish and continue their role as parents. However, with new practices on children’s graves, the growing use of memory tattoos and
especially the use of online media as platform for various communities for bereaved parents, this seem to be changing and strengthen both the interper‑
sonal communication and social interactions about and with the deceased child.This study presents results from case studies of both open and closed online
grief communities for bereaved parents in Denmark and Sweden (Refslund Christensen & Sandvik 2013, Hård af Segerstad & Kasperowski 2014) in order to
analyze how development of practices and norms for grieving and mourning online are related to the particular conditions for participation, and how these
practices are related to dominant ideas of grief in society as such. Rooted in contemporary research on processes of grief and mourning – especially focusing
on changes from a paradigm om ‘letting go and moving on’ to paradigm of continuing bonds (Klass et al. 1996) and performing parenthood (Christensen
& Sandvik 2015) – this presentation discusses which kinds of practices are performed and shared in the different forums and how norms and traditions are
performed, challenged and negotiated in the various formats of interpersonal comminications. Can these practices lead to a softening of prejudices against
mourners, i.e. de-tabooing the loss of a child, or do they lead to new biases and misconceptions as displayed in popular media, casting online communities
for bereaved parents as grief-ghettos? Studying bereaved parents’grief work in dynamic communities online enhances our understanding of contemporary
and contributes to a nuancing of theoretical understanding of parental grief. References Christensen, D. R., & Sandvik, K. (2015). Death ends a Life not
a Relationship: Timework and Ritualizations at Mindet.dk. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 21(1–2), 57–71.10.1080/13614568.2014.983561
Hård af Segerstad, Y & Kasperowski, D. (2015) A community for grieving: affordances of social media for support of bereaved parents, New Review of Hy‑
permedia and Multimedia, 21:1–2, 25–41, DOI: 10.1080/13614568.2014.983557 Klass, D., Silverman, P.R. & Nickman, S.L. (1996) Continuing Bonds- New
Understandings of Grief. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. Refslund Christensen, Dorthe & Sandvik, Kjetil. 2013. Sharing Death: Conceptions of Time at a Danish Online
Memorial Site. In Dorthe Reflslund Christensen & Rane Willerslev (eds.), Taming Time, Timing Death. Social Technologies and Ritual, 99– 118. Farnham:
Ashgate.
PP 567
Support Seeking from a Helpline: Sex, Violence, and Loneliness of Boys
I. Virtanen
1
1
University of Tampere, The School of Communication- Media and Theatre, Tampere, Finland
This research focuses on boys' and young men's support seeking from a male helper in a phone based helpline. The aim of the study is to analyze the issues
that have boys’ reach out and to describe the communication of the specific support needs. Several studies indicate that loneliness and social isolation is
more common for boys than it is for girls. Additionally, research shows that loneliness is hereditary, and fathers’ emotional loneliness is greater than that
of mothers. Boys are likely to encounter violence in their peer groups and are commonly interested in but also puzzled by sex and sexuality. One’s own
personal relationship skills also raise questions when transitioning from a child to an adolescent. This research has two goals: 1) to categorize and scrutinize
the boys’ communication with a helpline professional, and 2) to analyze and describe the boys’ support needs, problematic interaction situations, and
the ways of communicating the challenges. The data of this research comprises of all the phone calls made in 2010 and 2015 to a helpline called the Boys’
Phone. The Boys' Phone is a service of a non-profit organization called the Family Federation of Finland. Their work concerns the well-being of Finnish
families, youth and population. The Boys' Phone is a helpline to which boys 20 years of age or younger can call anonymously from 1 to 6 pm Monday to
Friday. For example, the Boys' Phone received over 22,350 phone call attempts in 2014 to which they were able to answer to approximately 7,586 (33,9%).
The data contains reports and transcripts of actual phone calls between the boys and the helpers. Four professional helpline workers, all men who are
trained in social work or sexual health, collected the data. Each phone call transcript contains demographic information about the caller when available,
the topics discussed, and a word for word description or transcript of what was said during the phone call: What the boy talked about, what the issue was
that he stated he was dealing with, how he talked about the issue, and what he needed from the professional. The boys’ communication is in transcripts
whereas the professionals’communication is saved in audio format.The supportive interaction is possible to be analyzed by linking the specific transcripts to
the audio.The methods of analysis are quantitative and qualitative content analysis made with Atlas.ti qualitative research analysis program.The analysis is
carried out carefully with ethical conduct and protecting the boys’anonymity. The results from 2010 and 2015 will be compared and discussed in relation to
the conference theme of continuation or discontinuation of issues that weigh on the lives of our youth. This study is part of a larger research project, which
addresses boys’communication competence and supportive interactions that are most beneficial to them on a helpline. The paper will present the prelimi‑
nary results of the study and they will be compared to the existing international research.