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Results show grief processes strongly resembling reactions to real characters, while language differs by gender, narrative role, interactivity mode, and media form. Themes include aural effects, nostalgia and beauty, resurrection and transmedia, spoilers, comparisons to real life, franchise impact, and viewer-gender effects, informing future character design.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/is-death-only-the-beginning-how-people-mourn-artificial-characters-in-social-media/143856/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/is-death-only-the-beginning-how-people-mourn-artificial-characters-in-social-media/143856.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Chumphorn","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-18","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",5,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What research question does the study focus on regarding character death?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It asks how people react when artificial characters die and how those characters are mourned, including whether the process resembles mourning in real life.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How were the audience comments collected and analyzed?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The study collected 3,000 online comments about the deaths of 16 characters from video games and TV series, coded them using five grief stages, and then applied both LIWC2015 psycholinguistic analysis and thematic analysis.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What factors influence differences in language when discussing a character’s death?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"Differences are tied to the character’s gender, their role in the story, the interactivity mode, and the form of media.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},143856,1787696994,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,100,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":55,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":80,"read_time":144},2336475401981,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/22000c94efd8d5204d?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786935347598174694","Article  \nIs Death Only the Beginning? How People Mourn Artificial Characters in Social Media  \nSercan Şengün1 , João M. Santos2  , Joni Salminen3,4, Milica Milenkovic5, and Bernard J. Jansen6  \nGames and Culture 1–48 © The Author(s) 2023  \nArticle reuse guidelines:  \n[sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)  \n[DOI: 10.1177/15554120231190195](DOI: 10.1177/15554120231190195)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/15554120231190195)[journals.sagepub.com/home/gac](journals.sagepub.com/home/gac)  \nAbstract  \nWe analyze the audience response to the death of narrative-driven fictitious characters with predetermined fates, whether part of a virtual or cinematic story, and specifically from video games and TV series. Our aim is to contribute to the studies of identification and empathy with fictitious characters in media, as well as to close the research gap around these studies by specifically focusing on the death of the characters. We collected 3000 online comments on the deaths of 16 characters from video games and TV series. We coded each comment according to the five stages of grief by Kübler-Ross and Kessler and performed quantitative (using LIWC2015 psycholinguistic analysis software) and qualitative analysis (using thematic analysis). Overall, we found a strong resemblance between the processes of grief for real and fictitious characters and uncovered differences of language when discussing the death of a character based on (a) their gender; (b) their role in the story; (c) their interactivity mode; and (d) the form of media. Finally, qualitative analysis revealed unique and novel themes for on-screen deaths, such as (a) the effects of aural cues;  \n1 Games and Interactive Media, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA  \n2Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte), Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal  \n3School of Marketing and Communication, University of Vaasa, Finland  \n4Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland 5Union–Nikola Tesla University Belgrade, Serbia 6Qatar Computing Research Institute Doha, Qatar  \nCorresponding Author:  \nSercan Şengün, Games and Interactive Media, University of Central Florida, 12405 Aquarius Agora Dr. Orlando, FL 32816-1344, USA.  \nEmail: [sercan.sengun@ucf.edu](sercan.sengun@ucf.edu)  \n(b) nostalgia and beauty; (c) resurrection and transmedia; (d) spoilers; (e) comparisons and real-life connotations; (f) the effects on the franchise; and (g) the effects of the gender of the viewer on these discussions. We discuss our findings in detail, along with implications for future character development.  \nKeywords  \ndeath, fictitious characters, video games, television, five stages of grief  \nIntroduction  \nAlong with television (TV) series, digital games are among the fastest-growing forms of entertainment. Accordingly, the characters depicted within the stories told in these media operate similar to characters in traditional stories (printed, oral, etc.) in the ways that we are “charmed by [their] personalities, inspired by their acts of courage, moved by their experiences,” and how they help us to “broaden [our] perspectives about others [and] become more tolerant and empathetic”(Emery, 1996) . In this study, we refer to these characters interchangeably as virtual, fictitious, or artificial characters; that is, people or beings that do not exist beyond the realm of media such as a game, movie, or television series. However, we do acknowledge the nuance that these concepts might carry for various fields such as media, game, and literary studies. We define their unifying point as being narrative-driven and having predetermined fates in their stories, as opposed to having fates that are determined by audience choices, such as can be found in certain types of video games. In this aspect, they reflect an authorial intention (Farrell, 2017) as to when and how they will succeed, fail, or die as a part of the story. The relationships that people forge with fictitious chara","cbCaiqnHFBUNpCLl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiqnHFBUNpCLl","pdf",2424394,48,"English","# Introduction\n## Fictitious characters and predetermined fates\n## Emotional responses and empathy gaps\n# Method and analysis\n## Grief-stage coding framework\n## Psycholinguistic and thematic analysis\n# Findings\n## Similarities to grief for real people\n## Language differences by gender, role, interactivity, and media form\n# Discussion\n## Unique themes for on-screen deaths\n## Implications for character development","[{\"question\":\"What research question does the study focus on regarding character death?\",\"answer\":\"It asks how people react when artificial characters die and how those characters are mourned, including whether the process resembles mourning in real life.\"},{\"question\":\"How were the audience comments collected and analyzed?\",\"answer\":\"The study collected 3,000 online comments about the deaths of 16 characters from video games and TV series, coded them using five grief stages, and then applied both LIWC2015 psycholinguistic analysis and thematic analysis.\"},{\"question\":\"What factors influence differences in language when discussing a character’s death?\",\"answer\":\"Differences are tied to the character’s gender, their role in the story, the interactivity mode, and the form of media.\"}]","Is Death Only the Beginning? How People Mourn Artificial Characters in Social Media | PDF",121]