listening+to+young+people+talk+about+death

Coombs, Sara. “Death Wears a T-Shirt: listening to young people talk about death.” Mortality 19.3 (2014) : p284-302. Article.

This article published by the department of sociology at the University of Essex talks to kids aged 10-17 about how they process and reflect on death. To understand if someone is numbing to real life tragedy begins with understanding how its processed in the first place. The belief that the way people learn to react to tragedy begins as a child makes this sample particularly valuable. Relating very specifically to my topic, this article suggests that, “contemporary media have the capacity to ‘desequester’ the dying, death and mourning, by bringing death back into everyday life.” If celebrity deaths and cinematic deaths are so popularized through the media that we view beginning at such a young age, it must influence how we as people form our opinions and feelings on death itself. Being published by the department of sociology gives a good slant to this article in that it highlights more into how people are reacting to the media we as children consume.

kimberly corley