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Cited by 15Memory, Trauma, and CommemorationDeath, Funerary Practices, and MourningMemory, History, Trauma, Identity

Postmortem memory of public figures in news and social media

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West, Robert, Leskovec, Jure, Potts, Christopher·2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.2106152118PMC PMC8463883
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Abstract

Significance: Who is remembered by society after they die? Although scholars as well as the broader public have speculated about this question since ancient times, we still lack a detailed understanding of the processes at work when a public figure dies and their media image solidifies and is committed to the collective memory. To close this gap, we leverage a comprehensive 5-y dataset of online news and social media posts with millions of documents per day. By tracking mentions of thousands of public figures during the year following their death, we reveal and model the prototypical patterns and biographic correlates of postmortem media attention, as well as systematic differences in how the news vs. social media remember deceased public figures.

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  • When people of public interest die, this usually leads to a sharp rise in media attention and social media activity that decays in a matter of days and rises again at anniversaries and special dates related to the deceased individual.

    “When people of public interest die, this usually leads to a sharp rise in media attention and social media activity that decays in a matter of days (West et al., 2021) and rises again at anniversaries and special dates related to the deceased individual (cf.Ferron & Massa, 2014;Keegan & Brubaker, 2015).”

    From Understanding Autobiographical Memory in the Digital Age: The AMEDIA-Model (2024) · cites this paper as West et al., 2021

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
West, R., Leskovec, J., & Potts, C.
Affiliations
  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
  • Stanford University (US)
Corresponding author
West, Robert
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2021-09-15
Volume
118
Issue
38
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.2106152118
PMC
PMC8463883
OpenAlex
W3157875203
Cited by
15
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2
FWCI
2.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (200021_185043)
  • National Science Foundation (OAC-1835598, OAC-1934578, CCF-1918940, IIS-2030477)
  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CROSS 2019)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Memory, History, Trauma, Identity
Keywords
collective memory, public figures, media attention, Twitter, news media, cultural memory, communicative memory, unnatural death, age at death, political leaders, artists
MeSH terms
Mass Gatherings, Communication, Humans, Mass Media, Memory, Social Identification, Social Media, Sociological Factors

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