Obit Research

As part of my obituary research I read an interesting study, “The Reporting of Grief”, by one newspaper of record for the U.S.: the New York Times.

The study seems to be more about articles about the grief process and grieving in general, rather than obituary writing, but I thought what the study said was interesting and telling. Here are some highlights:

• The study asks: Is grief socially constructed by the media?

• People, the study says, look to institutions to help them understand grief and give them instructions on how to grieve. The definitions provided by institutions are never all-inclusive, and leads to “disenfranchised grief.”

• The study says the media (and I would argue the larger American popular culture) present grief as an abnormal state of mind, something to be “cured” of.

• The study found that experts gave different, conflicting messages about grieving depending on the framing of reporters’ questions.

Also interesting is that during 2000-2006 articles equated handling one’s grief “well” with handling it quickly.  The study ends by recommending that topics not be chosen/constructed with the aim of “curing” or “taming” an illness, because grief isn’t an illness, but a personal journey.