An assessment of bereaved supporters' expectations and experiences of giving via digital memorial sites

对失去亲人的支持者通过数字纪念网站捐赠的期望和体验进行评估

• 批准号: 2874840
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Bath
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2874840
• 关键词: assessment; bereaved; supporters; expectations; experiences

This project aims to explore the creation of digital content via charities as a memorialising practice. It will answer the following questions:1. Why do bereaved people give to charities in remembrance of a deceased person by creating an online memorial?2. How were their expectations of this ritual fulfilled or disappointed in their actual experience?3. What is the role and experience of charities in providing this service, and how might practise need to change to meet the needs of bereaved supporters? In-memoriam giving in the UK is valued at approximately £2.2 billion, and it is growing steadily at 2.5% per annum. Digital forms of such giving - such as creating digital memorials by making one-off cash donations or peer-to-peer fundraising - accelerated during the pandemic.This bereavement ritual seems set to stay, but currently very little is known about in-memoriam giving online, in terms of the experience for bereaved people, the benefit derived from such sites, and the management of the sites by charities. Various hypotheses as to how in-memoriam giving might aid bereaved people have been proposed. These include: by locating the deceased person in the (ongoing) world, by continuing relationships and communication with the deceased and by creating a sense of 'symbolic immortality' for the deceased person. To date, there has been no systematic review of these hypotheses and little, if any, of the existing research has spoken to bereaved people to understand their experiences.In seeking empirical evidence to critique these hypotheses, this PhD study will make a novel contribution to the field of death studies, charity practice, and digital transformation as it captures the voices, values and views of bereaved online donors for the first time. In terms of impact and real-world utility, this project will provide charities with practical guidelines and standards about the development and management of digital sites for bereaved people. Utility will be maximised by the innovative methodology of this project.This project is in all likelihood the first co-creative collaboration between charity fundraisers and an academic researcher. An advisory board, made up of in-memoriam fundraisers from a wide range of charities (in terms of cause, size and region), will guide every stage of the project, including supporting the recruitment of interview participants, shaping the conversation guide for the semi-structured interviews, reviewing early findings from the thematic analysis and critiquing the best practice guidelines to ensure they are applicable to charities. By taking a participatory approach, this project will increase charity buy-in to implementing necessary changes to their practise, thereby maximising benefit to bereaved people using digital memorial websites. Additionally, this project will further the usage of digital tools within academic research into social policy and practise. All the semi-structured interviews will be conducted online. These interviews will also include an element of digital ethnography, as participants will be invited to revisit the process of creating a digital memorial enabling increased understanding of their behaviours and emotions during the creative process. All interviews, with the informed consent of participants, will be recorded and compilation videos of key themes will be embedded into the thesis to ensure the research findings are maximally accessible and impactful for charity fundraisers. This will further increase the likelihood that changes are made to improve the experience of bereaved charity supporters.

该项目旨在探索通过慈善机构创建数字内容作为一种纪念做法。它将回答以下问题：1.为什么失去亲人的人通过创建在线纪念来向慈善机构捐赠纪念逝者？2.他们对这一仪式的期望在他们的实际经历中是如何实现的或失望的？3.慈善机构在提供这项服务方面的角色和经验是什么，实践可能需要如何改变，以满足失去亲人的支持者的需求？在英国，纪念捐赠的价值约为22亿GB，并以每年2.5%的速度稳步增长。这类捐赠的数字形式--例如通过一次性现金捐赠或点对点募捐来创建数字纪念碑--在混乱期间加速。这种丧亲仪式似乎将继续下去，但目前人们对在线纪念捐赠知之甚少，包括遇难者的体验，从此类网站获得的好处，以及慈善机构对网站的管理。关于纪念捐赠可能如何帮助失去亲人的人，人们提出了各种假设。这些措施包括：通过在(正在进行的)世界中定位死者，通过与死者持续的关系和沟通，以及通过为死者创造一种‘象征性不朽’的感觉。到目前为止，还没有对这些假说进行系统的审查，现有的研究几乎没有与失去亲人的人交谈，以了解他们的经历。在寻找实证证据来批评这些假说的过程中，这项博士研究将为死亡研究、慈善实践和数字转型领域做出新的贡献，因为它首次捕捉到了失去亲人的在线捐赠者的声音、价值观和观点。在影响力和现实效用方面，该项目将为慈善机构提供有关为失去亲人的人开发和管理数字网站的实用指导方针和标准。这个项目的创新方法将最大限度地发挥效用。这个项目很可能是慈善筹款人和学术研究人员之间的第一次共同创造性合作。一个由来自各种慈善机构的纪念筹款人组成的咨询委员会将指导项目的每个阶段，包括支持招聘面试参与者，制定半结构化面试的谈话指南，审查专题分析的早期结果，并批评最佳做法指南，以确保它们适用于慈善机构。通过采取参与式的方法，该项目将增加慈善机构的投入，对他们的做法进行必要的改变，从而使使用数字纪念网站的丧失亲人的人获得最大利益。此外，该项目将在社会政策和实践的学术研究中进一步使用数字工具。所有的半结构化面试都将在网上进行。这些访谈还将包括数字人种学的内容，因为参与者将被邀请重温创建数字纪念碑的过程，以便更好地了解他们在创作过程中的行为和情感。在参与者知情同意的情况下，所有采访都将被录制下来，关键主题的汇编视频将被嵌入论文中，以确保研究结果对慈善筹款人具有最大程度的可及性和影响力。这将进一步增加做出改变以改善失去亲人的慈善支持者体验的可能性。