Cette thèse revient sur les moyens de la prise en charge publique et par les associations de défunts dits ‘indigents’. Si la littérature sur ce sujet insistait grandement sur la catégorie des personnes de la rue et sur les idées de délaissement et de sacrifice, ce travail met en avant les différentes facettes, parfois conflictuelles, de l’intérêt public porté à ces morts. Cette recherche est principalement l’aboutissement d’une ethnographie menée auprès de l’association parisienne du Collectif les Morts de la Rue. Cette association dénonce depuis 2001 les conditions de vie et de morts des personnes de la rue et s’occupe, depuis 2003, des cérémonies funéraires pour tous les corps non-réclamés de la ville de Paris. L’enquête revient sur les motivations des deux groupes de bénévoles coexistant au sein de la même association, l’un se concentrant sur l’activisme en faveur des personnes de la rue (‘gueuler’) et l’autre sur les rituels des défunts non-réclamés, quelle que soit leur origine sociale (‘pleurer’). Ces deux groupes créent des communautés symboliques de morts et de vivants à travers des cérémonies, émotions et rituels. L’insistance du groupe des fondateurs sur l’activisme en faveur des vivants de la rue est parfois en contradiction avec l’implication plus générale de certains bénévoles pour tous les défunts non-réclamés. La thèse revient sur leur cohabitation au sein de la même association et montre comment des références communes à la fraternité humaine et à l’universalité de la mort ne suffisent pas à couvrir des motifs d’engagements divergents. / This research analyzes what happens to the deceased labeled as ‘paupers’ and managed through non-governmental organizations and public means in France. Where previous literature on the subject emphasized social categories such as homeless people and theories of sacrifice, this work puts forward conflicting public interests given to the dead labeled as ‘paupers’. This recearch draws mostly on ethnographic fieldwork with the Collectif Les Morts de la Rue, a parisian organization denouncing the life and death conditions of homeless people since 2001, and in charge of the funeral ceremony of any unclaimed body since 2003. The investigation shows how two groups of volunteers with two different primary interests developed over time. The first group is mainly concerned with political activism in favor of people living and dying on the streets. The second group focuses more on non-political rituals for all unclaimed bodies, regardless of their social status. The two groups coexist with mutual references to the dead and to humanity after death. Through rituals and public ceremonies using emotions, they create symbolic communities gathering both the living and dead. The strong emphasis of the first group on inequality and socio-economic structure is sometimes at odds with the more general emphasis of the second group on the universal bond between human beings, showing how shared references to death and humanity are not enough to cover diverging motivations inside the same organisation.

Abstract This thesis addresses the issue of the effects of (repeated) exposure to death-related news content systematically and programmatically through a four-phase research project using a Terror Management Theory (TMT) framework. The central research questions that are posed include, ‘What are the effects for individuals of exposure to death in TV news?’; ‘When will individuals personalise death-related TV news as opposed to feel desensitised to it?’; and, ‘How do individuals cope with repeated exposure to death in TV news?’ The first three chapters provide an extensive literature review that integrates current research from the media effects and mass communication literature with that of experimental findings based on TMT. This leads to an overview of the research program. Then, a series of empirical chapters present findings from six experiments, using a mixed methods approach that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data and analyses. Finally, in Chapter 9 trends within the quantitative and qualitative data across the studies are discussed along with the theoretical and broader implications of the findings. Overall, there are three primary aims of the research. (1.) To examine a) whether death in news media can prime personal mortality salience, thus eliciting death thought accessibility and cultural worldview fluid compensation defensive outcomes as theorised by TMT (increased nationalism, endorsement of affiliation needs and self-esteem bolstering), and b) whether it is only particular portrayals of death in news media that work this way (i.e., whether there are critical factors such as viewer-victim similarity or level of exposure, as identified in the media effects literature) that play a significant moderating role. (2.) To explore whether it is necessary for the outcomes of exposure to death in news media to be defensive or whether there are alternative and more pro-social outcomes related to the extent that the viewer elaborates cognitively on the content or views more rationally (as implicated in Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Sambceti, 2004). This could be as a function of individual differences (e.g., in cognitive thinking style) or as a function of the situational or contextual factors that prompt one to consider death-related news content more personally (emotionally) versus rationally. (3.) To ask about the “repeated” nature of death primes in news media, given that news media is unique in its daily emphasis on death-related content. Towards this aim we seek to answer the following: Does repeated exposure lead to accentuation of the defensive fluid compensation effects or does it lead to diminished effects because of desensitisation and depersonalisation? This third aim is potentially the most complex and is an under-researched area with important real-world implications. Specifically, Study 1 addresses reactions to death in TV news using a written stimulus task for a range of dependent variables– namely, death thought accessibility, cultural worldview endorsement, and cultural worldview defence. Examining the same dependent variables, Studies 2 and 3 explore the effects of actual TV news footage of a bus crash with multiple fatalities and the role of viewer-victim similarity. Study 4 examines what happens when explicit instructions to imagine your own death are given while watching the same TV news footage. Next, Study 5 examines whether more pro-social effects rather than the typical TMT defensive reactions are possible when a method by Cozzolino et al. (2004) that involves deeper death reflection and the role of cognitive elaboration are explored. Finally, Study 6 addresses the question of repeated exposure to death in TV news, with a focus on whether prior death exposure leads to attenuation or heightening of typical TMT defensive outcomes. Together, results from the six studies indicate that exposure to death-related TV news does not lead inevitably to defensive reactions. While there is strong evidence that death in TV news increases death thought accessibility (especially compared to a non-death TV news control), critically, whether personal mortality salience (as evidenced by self and other death thoughts) is resultant is more variable. Qualitative data shows that people have a range of defensive strategies and resources available to them and that we are honed at detecting personal relevance. Rather than viewing desensitisation as a negative by-product of TV news consumption it seems that the self-protective features of desensitisation are note-worthy. Detachment or neutrality seems to help individuals cope with the barrage of death-related images and sound bytes broadcast via TV news. Conversely, a sensitivity to detect personal relevance helps serve an important surveillance function also geared towards self-protection and meaning making. When there is maximal similarity with the victims of TV news stories portraying death, we can expect viewers to perceive high personal relevance, to personalise news content and to process the content more emotionally, as opposed to feeling desensitised. Although the buffering role of high rational thinking was weak overall, contrary to TMT-based predictions higher rational thinkers were found to be more prone to cultural worldview defence in a number of instances. The theoretical implications for TMT, social identity-based theories, Cozzolino et al.s (2004) work, and relevant media effects literature are discussed. The primary implication for TMT is evidence that death-related TV news footage has the capacity to make personal mortality salient and that higher death thought accessibility often can be evoked by death-related TV news. However, when subsequent measurement of cultural worldview defence is undertaken after a three-minute delay, higher death thought accessibility does not necessarily lead to consistent evidence of defensive fluid compensation effects. These two dependent variables have not been measured together in the literature to date, so these findings provide a significant theoretical distinction for TMT. While death in TV news more likely promotes procreation or family-related defensiveness than national bias, a range of factors (such as detecting self-relevance, viewer-victim similarity, and one’s ability to adopt a rational thinking style) moderate effects in various situations. In particular, factors such as contextual news features, rational thinking, shock value or spontaneous realisation of relevance, and reminders of one’s own family or of one’s own or others’ death are important.