Digitalization of Grief: Analyzing Emotions of Loss and Grief through YouTube Comments
Abstract
Today, the internet and social networks play an important role in socializing and interacting with society. YouTube ranks first among digital Social Networking Sites (SNS) in this direction. For this reason, YouTube emerges as a new public space for comments on loss and grief. However, despite this, there appears to be no study analyzing these comments in the context of loss and grief. In this direction, this research aims to analyze the emotions of user comments under three songs uploaded to YouTube video site, one of the social media platforms, and selected in accordance with the research purpose. In the research, user comments written under YouTube music videos were analyzed with a qualitative approach in the context of grief emotions. For this purpose, document analysis was used as a data collection tool in the study, and the collected data were examined using content analysis techniques. The results of the study showed that codes such as longing, sadness, anger, guilt, denial, inability to accept, grief, empathy and loneliness emerged. It also shows that users use YouTube as a tool to convey their experiences and emotions during the mourning process. It seems that the increasing use of social media networks and the use of these channels by individuals to convey their feelings of grief may change social norms of mourning in the near future.
Keywords
Digital mourning, mourning on social media, mourning on YouTube, mourning comments, online mourning reactions
References
- Akyıldız, A. (2023). YouTube yorum alanında kullanıcı etkileşimi: Bir hatırlama fenomeni olarak dijital ortamlarda duygusal motivasyon. Yeni Medya Elektronik Dergisi, 7(2), 84-96.
- Al Sheikh, H. M. (2025). Digital mourning: The transformative role of photography in contemporary grief practices. Death Studies, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2476972
- Asghar, M. Z., Ahmad, S., Marwat, A., & Kundi, F. M. (2015). Sentiment analysis on youtube: A brief survey. arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.09142.
- Balakrishnan, J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). Social media addiction: What is the role of content in YouTube?. Journal Of Behavioral Addictions, 6(3), 364-377.
- Balcı, Ş., & Demir, Y. (2018). Sosyal medya kullanımı ile mutluluk düzeyi arasındaki ilişki: Üniversite gençliği üzerine bir inceleme. The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies, 71, 339-354. http://dx.doi.org/10.9761/JASSS7762
- Breen, L. J. ve O’Connor, M. (2007). The fundamental paradox in the grief literature: A critical reflection. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 55(3), 199–218. https://doi:10.2190/OM.55.3.C
- Brubaker, J. R., Hayes, G. R., & Dourish, P. (2013). Beyond the grave: Facebook as a site for the expansion of death and mourning. The Information Society, 29(3), 152-163. https://doi.org/-10.1080/01972243.2013.777300
- Büyüköztürk, Ş., Kılıç Çakmak, E., Akgün, Ö. E. Karadeniz, Ş. & Demirel, F. (2008). Bilimsel araştırma yöntemleri. Pegem Yayıncılık.
- Carroll, B., & Landry, K. (2010). Logging on and letting out: Using online social networks to grieve and to mourn. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(5), 341-349. https://doi.-org/10.1177/0270467610380006
- Cunha, A. A. L., Costa, M. C., & Pacheco, M. A. C. (2019, May). Sentiment analysis of youtube video comments using deep neural networks. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing (pp. 561-570). Cham: Springer International Publishing.