Suicide and grief by suicide on Twitter
posts about deaths of public figures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-8623.2024.1.40186Keywords:
suicide, grief, social media, internet, famous personAbstract
Qualitative approach study developed with the aim of analyze themes of Brazilian posts about suicide and grief related to the death of public figures by suicide. Data collection was performed on Twitter using the advanced search tool, resulting in 368 eligible posts published from 2009 to 2018. The contents of the posts were analyzed through Thematic Analysis. The results obtained were discussed through five categories: “Reactions and feelings expressed”, “Representations of public figures and risks for imitative behaviors”, “Grief over fictional characters”, “The need of prevention and postvention on Twitter” and “Grief over suicide on the Internet”. The study produced knowledge about patterns and variations related to emotional reactions, beliefs, attitudes, judgments, risks and protectives factors of the digital culture about suicide as well as the understanding of contradictions and unusual and relevant characteristics for the prevention and postvention of suicide on the Internet.
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