Abstract
Funerals are a reflective practice to bid farewell to the departed soul. Different religions, cultural traditions, rituals, and social beliefs guide how funeral practices take place. Family and friends gather together to support each other in times of grief. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, the way funerals are taking place is affected by the country's rules and region to avoid the spread of infection. The present study explores the media portrayal of public sentiments over funerals. In particular, the present study tried to identify linguistic dimensions associated with lexical components of social processes, affective processes, fear, and disgust. An exhaustive search of newspaper coverage of funeral and related articles was made for a specific corona period. After an initial screening for the details and language used, a total of 46 newspaper articles on funerals were finalized for the analysis. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to determine the association between linguistic dimensions of function words and words related to social and affective processes, as presented in the newspaper articles. Sentiment Analysis and Cognition Engine (SEANCE) was applied for the analysis of sentiment, social cognition, and social order. Bayesian correlation analysis and regression revealed positive and significant associations between function words and affective processes, between pronouns and social processes, and between negative adjectives and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Also, significant negative associations were found between polarity nouns and psychological processes of fear and disgust and between polarity verbs and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Bayes factor 10 provides strong evidence in favor of the study hypotheses. The media is influenced by the prevailing sentiments in society and reflects their perception of the current social order and beliefs. The findings provide a glimpse into the prevailing sentiment of society through the lens of media coverage. These understandings are expected to enhance our observations of how people express their feelings over the loss of their loved ones and help mental health professionals develop their therapeutic protocols to treat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-affected population.
Highlights
The coronavirus pandemic changed our daily lives, work behavior, social gathering, and customary funeral traditions
The first study question was to determine whether there is an association between the human affective process and the use of function words in newspaper articles published on funerals during the coronavirus pandemic
How strong is the relationship between the two variables? The selected 46 newspaper articles were analyzed to study using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to quantify both syntactic features and psychological processes
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic changed our daily lives, work behavior, social gathering, and customary funeral traditions. Bidding a ritualistic farewell with prayers for peace and forgiveness is a convention followed since time immemorial, irrespective of religions This period overwhelms the entire family, relatives, and friends with grief. The family members are not present in these rituals and are denied opportunities to offer a final goodbye (Bhanot et al, 2020). Under these circumstances, families are anguished, especially when they cannot share their loss with other families/society (Wallace et al, 2020). Literature suggests that the inability to perform the funeral rituals and bid farewell to deceased family members/relatives due to limited exposure or fear of infection results in the feeling of selfblame, grief, and anger (Wallace et al, 2020). The Commission to Investigate the Introduction and Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and Campbell (2006) on the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndromerelated coronavirus in 2002–2004 noted in its final report that “those left behind had no opportunity to confront the reality of death and to honor the life of the deceased” (p. 943), “with the proviso that funeral rites must obviously carry lower priority than the need to contain the virulent public health threat” (p. 942)
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