Fostering online communities through pakikiramay and pakikidalamhati on memorialized Facebook accounts

Memorializing the dead through death rituals has inevitably permeated in online spaces. In particular, Facebook users have maximized platform to commemorate dead, thereby forming communal digital mourning. Hence, this paper investigates how Filipinos foster an community their practices of Filipino concept pakikipagkapwa[one-of-us] pakikiramay and pakikidalamhati. Guided by Virgilio Enriquez’s Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology) Rotman Preece’s (2010) characteristics communities, investigated 593 posts from 24 memorialized accounts using textual analysis. Findings reveal that [sympathizing with another] pakikidalamhati [sharing burden mourning] expressed practicing technological affordances demonstrate bereaved maintained company departed life (“I been you, I will always be you”). Communal grief affirms are never alone while mourning (“We together mourning”).