Iranian Experience of Dual Spacization of Virtual Mourning: Social Network of Facebook

This study seeks to examine the virtual mourning as one of the memory practices among some of Iranian Facebook users. Three research questions guided the study as I sought to explore 1) the factors are involved in experiencing the extension of mournful remembering from real space to virtual space like Facebook, 2) the reasons these users have for continuing this experience to Facebook and 3) how this extension changes remembering and media-related practices. In order to answer these questions, dual spacization paradigm and combination of several perspectives and concepts from communication, sociology and psychology have been used. I conducted the deeply semi structured interviews with 16 ordinary Facebook users who had lost their beloved in recent years. The special experience of users, analyzed by MAX QDA, was interpreted that thanks to technologies of recording and preserving memories, mourning as a socio-cultural practice has become a considerably new, untested space. Like other life areas, mourning practices are experiencing a quality of dual- spacization, having different aspects: performative, archival and ritual.