Introduction: Media and Death

Johanna Sumiala is Adjunct Professor (Docent) in the Department of Social Research/Media and Communication Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Currently she works at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies as Kone Foundation Senior Fellow. She has authored books, articles and chapters related to public death, religion, ritual, social media and virtual ethnography. She is coeditor of School Shootings: Mediatized Violence in a Global Age. (Emerald, 2012) and author of Media and Ritual. Death, Community and Everyday Life (Routledge, 2013).

Outi Hakola has a doctoral degree in Media Studies from the University of Turku (Finland). Currently, she is working in the Human Mortality project of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Her research focuses on representations of death, dying, and mourning in fiction films and on television series.