Afterlife as Afterimage

The mass media make it possible for fame to be enhanced and transformed posthumously. What does it mean to fans when a celebrity dies, and how can death change the way that celebrities are perceived and celebrated? How do we mourn and remember? What can different forms of communication reveal about the role of media in our lives? Through a provocative look at the lives and legacy of popular musicians from Elvis to Tupac and from Louis Prima to John Lennon, Afterlife as Afterimage analyzes the process of posthumous fame to give us new insights into the consequences of mediation, and it illuminates the complex nature of fandom, community formation, and identity construction.

The Editors: Steve Jones is Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is author and editor of numerous books, including Virtual Culture; Doing Internet Research; CyberSociety 2.0; and Pop Music & the Press. He is a former president and co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers as well as Senior Research Fellow at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Dr. Jones is co-editor of the international journal New Media & Society and edits Digital Formations, a book series published by Peter Lang. Joli Jensen is Professor of Communication at the University of Tulsa. Her research interests are in American cultural and social thought. She is author of Redeeming Modernity: Contradictions in Media Criticism; Creating the Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music; and Is Art Good for Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life.

Contents: Julie Andsager: In Memoriam - Joli Jensen: Introduction - On Fandom, Celebrity, and Mediation: Posthumous Possibilities - Steve Jones: Better Off Dead: Or, Making It the Hard Way - Julie L. Andsager: Altared Sites: Celebrity Webshrines as Shared Mourning - Van M. Cagle: Flaunting It: Style, Identity, and the Social Construction of Elvis Fandom - Erika Doss: 'Elvis Forever' - Mary C. Beltrán: Commemoration as Crossover: 'Remembering' Selena - Peggy J. Bowers/Stephanie Houston Grey: The Hagiographic Impulse Anorexia in the Public Memory of a Pop Star - Joli Jensen: Posthumous Patsy Clines: Constructions of Identity in Hillbilly Heaven - George Kamberelis/Greg Dimitriadis: Collectively Remembering Tupac: The Narrative Mediation of Current Events, Cultural Histories, and Social Identities - Janne Mäkelä: Who Owns Him?: The Debate on John Lennon - John J. Pauly: Taming the Wildest: What We've Made of Louis Prima - Eric W. Rothenbuhler: The Strange Career of Robert Johnson's Records - Marko Aho: A Career in Music: From Obscurity to Immortality - Jonathan Sterne: Dead Rock Stars 1900 - Steve Jones: Echo Homo .