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Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media pp 281–297Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Archives of Sadness: Sharing Bereavement and Generating Emotional Exchange Between Strangers on YouTube

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change ((PSCSC))

Abstract

Focusing on the significant life events of death and grief, YouTube is examined in this chapter as a social media forum in which intimacy is generated between strangers in often fleeting gestures of outreach and kindness. This chapter argues that ‘intimate publics’ constitute a particular shift in the relationship between strangers as anonymity is normatively disentangled from a behavioural code of impersonality. This historically evolving shift in the relationship between strangers is one of the personalised intimacies in modes of address and in the types of subjects/topics publicly exchanged and documented between strangers. Using Mateus’ concept of extimacy (2010), this paper argues that social media sharing prefigures intimacy as extimacy—an orientation towards self-exposure in the outside world of known and unknown others.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Margaret Gibson & Golie Talaie

Authors
  1. Margaret Gibson
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  2. Golie Talaie
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Correspondence to Margaret Gibson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia

    Amy Shields Dobson

  2. Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Brady Robards

  3. School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Nicholas Carah

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Gibson, M., Talaie, G. (2018). Archives of Sadness: Sharing Bereavement and Generating Emotional Exchange Between Strangers on YouTube. In: Dobson, A.S., Robards, B., Carah, N. (eds) Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5_17

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