Document Detail


Media constructions of dying alone: a form of 'bad death'.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  14732609     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
In this study, newspaper accounts of people who die alone are analysed, drawing on a sample of 90 articles in the anglophone press that appeared in October 1999. Dying alone is represented as a fearful fate and a moral affair, often being the outcome of an undesirable personal character, either of the deceased or of onlookers, or involving the failings of society at large. It is frequently portrayed as occurring to people who are either geographically or socially distant from 'home', so that an imagined community of readers is encouraged to contemplate a death alone as the consequence of personal or societal breakdown. A degree of stigmatisation, sometimes of those who die alone, sometimes of those perceived to have caused this event, was evident. The negative evaluation of death alone parallels that found in some traditional societies where a death far from home is considered 'bad'. Dying alone contrasts significantly with the sociable, 'good', confessional deaths of newspaper columnists and other media celebrities facing terminal illness.
Authors:
Clive Seale
Related Documents :
7211149 - Community life and the development of avoidance reaction in the laboratory rat.
17537009 - End-of-life decision making in neonates and infants: comparison of the netherlands and ...
21158219 - Case series of neonatal hypocalcemia due to pseudohypoparathyroidism.
11867659 - Personality traits and existential concerns as predictors of the functions of reminisce...
23585389 - Specific antibodies against vaccine-preventable infections: a mother-infant cohort study.
2714159 - Caffeine pharmacokinetics in preterm infants older than 2 weeks.
2265529 - Why do young infants fail to search for hidden objects?
8444329 - Central nervous system alterations in a case of short-rib polydactyly syndrome, majewsk...
1229829 - The predictive value of glucose utilization rate in neonatal hypoglycaemia of small-for...
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Social science & medicine (1982)     Volume:  58     ISSN:  0277-9536     ISO Abbreviation:  Soc Sci Med     Publication Date:  2004 Mar 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2004-01-20     Completed Date:  2004-04-06     Revised Date:  2004-11-17    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8303205     Medline TA:  Soc Sci Med     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  967-74     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Human Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK. clive.seale@brunel.ac.uk
Export Citation:
APA/MLA Format     Download EndNote     Download BibTex
MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Attitude to Death / ethnology*
Bibliometrics
Cause of Death
Humans
Loneliness*
Newspapers*
Residence Characteristics
Social Class
Sociology, Medical
Terminal Care / psychology*

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


Previous Document:  "You're not going to dehydrate mom, are you?": Euthanasia, versterving, and good death in the Nether...
Next Document:  Ancient euthanasia: 'good death' and the doctor in the graeco-Roman world.