Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The effects of new media on users are discussed in many different ways. One of these influences that permeate every stage of everyday life is the change of individual attitudes and its transformation into social behavior. From this point of view, the subject of the study is to examine how the action of condolence changes with the spread usage of new media. The condolence, which has an important place in Turkish culture, takes place with certain rituals. In recent years, digital condolence has become widespread by leaving these rituals aside. The study interviewed ten adults considered to be digital immigrants using in-depth method to examine the transformation of condolence culture. As a result, according to the views of the interviewees there are some reasons for this change. First of these are, instead of being physically in the same place sending messages is more practical. The other reason is it is hard for people to face death closely. And the last common one is tiredness caused by work life and daily life hinders all kinds of social activities. For all these reasons, it has been found that digital condolence have been accepted as a new media practice and the old condolence practices are left behind.