Dear Sofia, 

​

You know I love you, don't you? Oh, and by the way, can we talk about Death now? I know you're only in your 20's - a time that's electrifying, vibrant, timeless. But this novel corona virus has give me pause. I'm thinking you've been affected by death way before your time because of this pandemic. You and I, we've lost people. I think everyone has. 

​

It seems unfair for you who are still so young to deal with such things - death and dying - but here they are at our doorsteps, knocking - already in your face, so to speak. So while the knock is audible - before it gets swallowed up by vibrant colors of life's wonderful back-to-normalcy, can I be an opportunist, and talk to you about Death now? 

​

You've heard of nonprofit palliative/hospice care, right? I know it's something usually saved for the bitter end, for Boomers, it's a distant concept. But wrapping your mind around it now could make all the difference for you later.

​

Did you know that thinking about this now could put you in control of your own destiny in that distant future? Not the doctors, (as much as they want to keep you alive) not your family, (as much as they love you) but you. When that distant time draws near, I hope you can be at a place you call home - where ever it may be - in your own space with whomever you want there, with no pain.

​

I know you don't want to think about it now, but I'm holding out hope that you might just consider it as you would just another checkpoint on a list of things to do for yourself: the trip you always wanted to take to Belize, the ultimate job. Having an inkling of this now could be on of the nicest things you could do for yourself later. And besides, why should it be information relegated only to the future, older age, the end?

​

So, I'm hoping you will hear me now, not two weeks before the time comes. It's just another uncomfortable convo, but you're fierce, so what's the harm? You deserve to know what to expect (every young person does) when the time rolls around some future day.

 

So even though this subject is only a distant whisper far, far, away, Sofia, can we talk about death now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First off, there are myths about death, older age, and things like disease that run deep in almost every person in every society around the globe. They are "meta-language[s] that cross[] cultures as [they] make sense of the nonrational"(Smith).  And you can't get much more nonrational than death, can you? It's a topic shrouded in mystery. So, naturally the things associated with it are equally nonrational, scary, and aversive.  Older age, death, dying - these are stigmatized concepts. 

 

Proof? Just look around. Youth abounds. That's not bad, but it definitely puts a damper on being older. It's reflected in advertising all the time. For example, look what Jeff Beer, in an article in Fast Company, an American business magazine, has to say:

​

"Honest question: When was the last time you saw anyone over 55 in a decent ad? The world of oldsvertising is a hellscape full of reverse mortgages, erectile dysfunction pills, and bathtubs that won’t kill you. If you took your entire view of the human race from primetime advertising alone, you’d see a society without old people. They don’t work, they don’t drink beer, they don’t drive cars. They don’t exist. According to Havas Group, only about 5% of U.S. advertising is even aimed at people over 50."

​

​

 

 

Frankly, this is nothing new. The argumentative force of such advertising, of Hollywood, the cosmetics industry, the health and wellness industry - it weights all of its promises on the preservation of eternal youth. The ultimate cost is the further stigmatization of older age and death&dying. So naturally, in response, palliative/hospice care organizations are going to target their audience as being older people, usually those already sick, and near "the end". Why would nonprofit (or even for profit) palliative care organizations break rank to target an audience they dont think is listening?

 

These organizations are already pushing against formidable barriers in their efforts to advertise and advocate for their services. Peter Drucker says that "Perception has primacy rather than information"(265). From this, it makes sense that the pervasive negative perceptions of age, death & dying overrule a young person simply wanting wanting to find out information about it for their own future use.

​

I spoke to someone at the Elizabeth Hospice, a nonprofit palliative/hospice care organization in San Diego, CA. about this. My conversation with Lisa Marcolongo, Media Relations & Veterans Specialist reminds me that the metalanguages surrounding this subject are alive and well.

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

"We keep it simple", says Lisa. She tells me that The Elizabeth Hospice tries to reach their demographic of 1.) 45 years of age and older daughters and sons who are taking care of their parents and older family members, 2.) spouses who are referring their partners 3.) the medical community (namely doctors). She admits that the subject of palliative/hospice care is not the easiest to communicate because of the ubiquitous (it's everywhere) stigma surrounding death and dying. Is that any surprise?

​

Lisa and the staff at Elizabeth Hospice dont have time to unpack entrenched social norms or completely revolutionize their communications with the public. They're consumed in fundraising, organizing, offering counseling for grieving, and alleviating suffering. They do what works. They believe in what they do and want to help people.

​

Lisa says narratives are especially effective at getting their message across. Local newspapers, Facebook, Instagram, and their website are used as vehicles for these narratives because these modes of communication are those most utilized by their audience. But other social media you may use, Sofia, are not applicable: "Oh no", she says, "No Twitter".

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

Look at the websites of The Elizabeth House, Savannah Hospice in Savannah, GA, Pikes Peak Hospice in Colorado Springs, just to name a few. These organizations utilize communicative practices which are utilitarian and interactive within a very specific audience. They want to connect people to the services they need and capture those wanting immediate access to assistance. This is the traditional message of palliative/hospice care communications. Any wonder why you know so little about this subject?  You're the kind of girl that likes to plan ahead, right. Even a little knowledge of this now would be of use to you, I'm betting. 

​

Lisa Marcolongo has a twinge of resignation when she tells me "the statistics say 80% of people want to die at home, but 60% are dying in hospitals." Sofie, that tells me that the message about hospice/palliative care is not necessarily reaching people in time so that they can use the services optimally.

​

So, what if people knew about it earlier - let's say in their 20's??  Drucker says, "We perceive as a rule, what we expect to perceive"(263). So what if we were to perceive palliative/hospice services as just another form of self-care -for later on? With a different understanding/expectation would it be easier to think about? Easier to plan for? You and your friends deserve to be included in the message. You're strong enough. You've already been through so much. I think you're ready.

​

Love,

Aunt Bird

​

​

​

Works Cited

 

1. Beer, Jeff. "Why Marketing to Seniors Is So Terrible". Fast Talk. Fast Company.com. May 05, 2019.https:fastcompany.com/90341477/why-marketing-to seniors-is-so-terrible. Accessed 01/30/2021.

2. ​Drucker, Peter F. "Functional Communications "The Essential     Drucker. The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management. (Collins Business Essentials). Peter Drucker, 2008, pp 260-267.

3. Lisa Marcolongo (Media Relations and Veteran Specialist at The  Elizabeth Hospice) in discussion with the blogger, February 2, 2021.

4. Parker, Jim. "Home-Based Patients Report Higher Satisfaction with End-of -Life Care". Hospice News. January 25, 2021. Accessed February 2, 2021.

5. Smith, Craig. From: Rhetoric and Human Consciousness: A History 4th Ed. Author/Editor: Smith, Craig R. Waveland Press (2013) ISBN 1-57766-797-1 Item Title: Chapter 2 –Rhetorical Dimensions of Myth and Narrative".

​

​

​

​

​

​

 Looking Under the Lid: How the Discourse   Community of Hospice/Palliative Care is   Created Through Language | 2.3.21

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

Dear Sofie,

​

Are you still with me? I hope you have totally tuned out yet. I wanted to sort of walk you through this palliative/hospice care stuff a little further.

The way it currently exists/presents itself in the world is that way for a reason. Organizations who offer these services target certain audiences because they know they are listening, and need their assistance tout de suite (right away). If we take a look at the way these organizations do this, you can see specific ways that language builds and perpetuates exactly what is currently expected of end of life care.

 

This is because discourse communities have to talk about, work within, communicate, and embody everything you think of when you think of hospice/palliative care. Discourse communities are "group[s] of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated" (Porter, 228). You're gang, et. al., at Starbucks is actually a global discourse community engaged in all this: working at the FL location, growing the beans in South America, global advertising, burning your fingers a la steamer, letting-people-hang-out-inside-without buying-anything (cool!) experts at Starbucks coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the same way that you and your coworkers are experts at making Starbuck's passion fruit ice teas, plus all those things the corporate level is expert at -- well, I want to compare that  to the way that hospice/palliative care has its own institutionalized community. And like the Starbucks coffee community, it too has global reach. Whether Elizabeth Hospice, the medical community, the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, those with elder parents and family member, the Chinese Association for Life Care, the International End of Life Doula Association, policy makers, spouses of those with terminal illness, Breede River Hospice, drug manufacturers, the American Geriatric Association, and caregivers, or Medicare, they are all members of the discourse community of palliative/hospice care, and they all speak the same language. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

James P. Gee says that this language  is "magical" because "we fit our language to a situation or context that our language, in turn, help[s] create in the first place"(20). Sort of like a self-fulfilling verbal prophecy. So all of the above organizations speak in the same "discourse of death", to use Jason Powell's term:

​

"Borrowing from across cultures and historical time, death and the ritual of death have been central to the fabric of all   societies. Indeed, the discourse of ‘death’ has emerged as a key issue and has now established itself as a core concern across the social sciences (Walter, 1999; Powell, 2005) (Powell, 53).

​

      Let's look at a few examples of this global discourse as its expressed for and within it's communities:

 

 

Advent Hospice in Florida is an example of what is conventionally seen on the home pages of most hospice/palliative care sites:

​

​

​

​

 

There are almost always mature people (usually white) with younger looking people attending to them. (This site has a button for "active participants" needing assistance. No button for "future participants".)Looking at another example, check out the website for Hospice Bangladesh. Instantly, we can see that the mission statement/vision of the organization has similarity to our U.S. example: 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

This is a global language, Sofia. Hospice Bangladesh, Advent Hospice, and pretty much every other nonprofit hospice/palliative care organization knows the community members to whom they reach - primarily older people at the end of life, and their caretakers. 

​

So far, do you feel out of place here, Sofie? Is anyone reaching out to you here? Not really. And that's because as inclusive as discourse communities are, they also have "exclusionary power" (Porter, 229).

​

If you look, you will see that most websites have interactive lists that include services, grief support, care for caregivers. The Elizabeth Hospice media and  communications specialists want to keep it simple. They include a graph and definition for those who may not yet know the specifics:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

"Speech, like appearance, is treated as an aspect of branding" says Deborah Cameron (80). The branding of the discourse communities of palliative and hospice care has many permutations, but all are ultimately focused on care and alleviation of pain and suffering for those in a discourse group which, I'm afraid, seems to exclude you right now, my dear Sofie. 

​

So you have been planning for your future since you were about thirteen years old. Your Dad invested in a couple of stocks for you. You've supported yourself since you were eighteen. You work, you save, you plan for the future. Why not add your end of life care into that list too?

Just because you are not included in the current rhetoric of this discourse community doesn't mean you can't be.

 

Do you remember the magic James Gee believes in? You can actually be a magician here. Your interest, and the interest of people your age, can change the discourse and it can transform the community to one that will welcome you- even in your youth. When you read my next post, you'll see how.

​

I love you.

 

Signed,

Aunt Bird

 

Works Cited

​

​1. Cameron, Deborah. "Globalization and the Teaching of communications Skills". Globalization and Language Teaching,​ edited by D. Block & D. Cameron, Routeledge, 2002,68-82. 

​

2. Gee, James Paul. " Discourses and Social Languages.

Porter, James. " Intertextuality and the Discourse Community

​3. Powell, Jason L. Rethinking Aging : Foucault, Victims and Death. Nova Science Publishers, Inc, 2017.EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1530446&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

​

​

​

​

 How the Genre of Palliative/Hospice Care   Thinks You're Not Ready to Join the Convo |     2.14.21

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

Dear Sofia,

​

So, did you know that even "death-and-dying" has a genre? When you were very young you liked to listen to your mom read the Harry Potter series. (Remember how uncool I was in thinking the books were entitled "Harriet Potter"!?) That series of books can be broadly described as being part of the children's or YA fiction genre. Or, you might further categorize it into the sub-genre of fantasy. And yes, I know you already know about genre from your high school and college English courses because you're brilliant that way.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

So whenever you get curious and feel like exploring palliative/hospice care online just for fun, you will discover that the genre is going to look and feel a certain way almost everywhere you look.  Each website offering hospice and palliative care services is going to try to persuade you to  utilize what they offer. You're basically going to see a mixture of the same recipe of things I have become familiar seeing for the last decade or so:

 

 

1. Images of people smiling - almost always including older people with younger people attending to them

2. The word "Dignity"

3. A menu that provides lists of services

4. Credentialing

5. Pictures of staff and grounds

6. More kinetically energized social media to accompany more statically anchored  main websites

​

​

All of these basic elements are tailored to those searching for services, a.k.a. the audience, and they are more than likely families (usually daughters) of older people who have been diagnosed with a "life limiting" illness. (All are careful not to use the work "terminal" because that word further stigmatize the identity of hospice/palliative care services.) The target audience, and I know it's hard for you to relate to that right now, is made up of, well, mostly people eons older than you. They're caregivers for someone who is already ready to sign up, and/or those who are searching for themselves as they are getting on in years. The basic message they communicate is the idea that they are t/here for you; they have what you need, and they are compassionate about providing it because their identities have been formed by participating in systems of genres (Bazerman,15).

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

    

                       

Amy J. Devitt writes that "genre [...] depends heavily on the intertextuality of discourse"(576). That means that there are lots of layers of meaning included within the discourse community of hospice/palliative care (death and dying). Webpages that represent nonprofit hospices, like, let's say Heart to Heart Hospice in San Antonio, need to relay a balanced amount of info layered with sincere, compassionate emotion. That's just the nature of the organization: offering services and being compassionate. So, their messaging is careful to relay a combination of  information that includes insurance specifics, compassion, non-profit  501 c 3 data, advertising, grief support, and medical care. It is all enshrouded in a dignified blanket.  

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

                     

                                               Heart to Heart Hospice in San Antonio, TX website. http://hearttohearthospice.com

​

I know you don't relate to the grey hair, planning for the end, or the need for pain meds right now, but right now, this is the traditional genre for hospice & palliative care - the grey hair, the dignity, etc., this is what speaks  to the majority of people who are visiting the website for immediate needs. They don't mean to exclude you, I promise. They just don't know that you might be listening. They aren't sure how to reach you - yet..

​

​

Just to let you know - I get that you feel that none of this applies to you. Please know it's not just you feeling that way. The genre of palliative/hospice care just doesn't go there yet to include you in their audience, mainly because they know you are young and healthy. Not because they are ignoring your importance. I get that you don't feel included in their discourse group. (Just suppose the below image replaced the Heart to Heart Hospice's one above. Does it change the message? It shouldn't right? But the expectations run so deep in all of us, so it feels off... (right now).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                Public Domain

 

Right now (and in the last decade since I volunteered at the hospice in Savannah) the presence of palliative/hospice care looks the way it looks because the existing genre is simply giving people what they have grown to expect from it. Think about it: a life limiting illness has just been diagnosed. Those involved are traumatized, disparaging, desperate, and running out of time. There is a whirlwind of activity in which they rally and seek help to alleviate suffering. Part of the frenzy is due to the pervasive aversion to the subject matter way beforehand, causing people to seek out services within a very narrow window of days or weeks. (My hope is that  that won't happen to you, Sofia, because you're reading this; you'll have already wrapped your mind around such things...)

​

The good thing is, the present genre is not fixed. Yay! In fact, people like Amy Devitt, an advocate of rethinking the conventional concept of genre, quotes another like-minded scholar, M.M. Bakhtin, who writes "The wealth and diversity of speech genres are boundless because the various possibilities of human activity are inexhaustible, and because each sphere of activity contains an entire repertoire of speech genres that differentiate and grow as the particular sphere develops and becomes more complex"("Problem" 60).

​

​

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

​

I'm sorry, Sofia. I don't want to bore you with scholarly discourse, but guess what? What Bakhtin and Devitt are saying is that when you and others in your age group enter into a discourse community you can actually create new sub-genres within the conventional genre! By being your own curious, checking it out now, engaging with it right here, right now, the genre would respond  to include you. You matter more than you think. You are actively creating your world. 

​

And with everything going on right now, COVID-19, politics, global warming, unresolved racial tensions - wouldn't palliative & hospice care just be another bit of the icing on the cake for you? How bad could thinking about it now be, in relation to all the other gems you already have on your plate? Oops! That sounds so cynical. But wait! You are already a great cynic, at your young age, my little Sofia.

​

I snark. But you and I know that these things are no laughing matter.  I know who you've lost. We suffer in their absence. What you feel is at the very center of the pathos (an element that evokes compassion) threaded through the discourse of every hospice/palliative care communication. These nonprofit organizations have a critical mission. They want to offer services, and at the same time, respectfully reach an audience with sensitively and sincere honor. We're talking  loved ones, loss.. I know this in painful.

Thus, it just wouldn't be ethical to simply splash pure data, costs/prices, medical procedures, or purely transactional content in their websites, right? That would be a train wreck.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

                                                                 

​

Instead, they communicate by effective ways which get their complicated message across with multimodality. (See, for example, the above video from above from the website, and YouTube presence of Mesilla Valley Hospice, in Las Cruces, NM.) This form of media, captures the level of care/services and sentiment of what they do. It relays compassion in a multimodal way that simply words alone or images alone, could not. 

 

And I must say, when I was considering volunteering at Hospice Savannah, I ran it by your Aunt Moon. She said that she interacted with a lot of people from hospice/palliative care when she worked at the hospital in FL. "They're good people. Everyone of them was good people" she told me.  I have to say she was right, Sofia. It takes a special kind of person to do the work to alleviate the suffering of others when they are going to die.

​

 People who care

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

are good people.

 

There's a citizenship of humanity that comprises this group - from the nurses, to the organizers, to the volunteers, the therapists, the doctors, the outreach, the spiritual advisors - they have a sense of mission to what they do. They're indeed good people, all those who work for and volunteer for hospice/palliative care organizations. I could feel that sense of purpose in their combined energy when I volunteered. The staff and volunteers typically refer the type of work they do as  being "an honor", "a privilege", or as "rewarding". Media experts are almost sure to try to capture this sentiment in the videos linked to their "About Us" sections or even on their main pages.

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

OK, Sofia. That was a lot. I'm thinking you have just about had all you can digest. Maybe you even have indigestion. But will you let it roll around in your head? You may not know what to think. I probably wouldn't either. I think one reason is because you're situated so far outside of this discourse group. The genre, the content, even the tone from the sample we looked at probably feels foreign. 

​

Next time I'd like to show you some novel communities who are organizing and changing the shape of this discourse community. Many are young like you. They're thinking about the future now and working to create one that aligns with their values and meanings. Pretty cool. It may offer you some better insights into this subject. 

Now go make some of that delicious salsa you make and eat your weight in chips. I will too. Until next post, I love you.

​

Signed,

Aunt Bird

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

​

1. Bazerman, Charles. "Genre and Identity: Citizenship in the Age of the Internet and the Age of Global Capitalism". The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre Strategies for Stability and Change. Edited by Richard Coe, et al. Hampton Press Inc., pp.13-38.

2. Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept Author(s): Amy J. Devitt Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Dec., 1993), pp. 573-586 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/358391 . Accessed: 13/08/2013 15:18

​

​

                                                                 

​

 

 

 

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Have the Power to Change the Discourse   2/20/21

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           Dear Sofia,

​

 

 

Are you OK? Are we OK to go on just a bit further? I want to demystify so much for you in such a short amount of space and time. My hope is that our little death and dying tour might guide you, even if it's just by a hair, to think about this kind of thing beforehand, before you are at the point of desperately needing it. If our time here helps to make you feel less of the discomfort and scariness that is natural for you to feel about such things, well, then I would feel a little less scared about them too. Yes - we all have that yucky reaction to all of this stuff - it's natural. But being informed  and part of the convo can help lessen the aversion. Can I have your permission to keep moving here? Will you come with me to le me show you how your interest in this (combined with the interest of others your age) could change the face of the way it  presently appears on a local-global level?

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

So there is a cool guy (well, cool in the sense that he has nerded-out in the field of writing to the extent that he has come up with some pretty cool theories) named Charles Bazerman. In one of his academic articles, he talks about the way that language is a "form of life" (13).

 

By that, he means we sort of breathe life into words the same way they breathe life into us. If we apply this interesting concept to our genre of death and dying (specifically hospice/palliative care), whether it be via the mediums of the Internet, TV, or print ads, other literature, etc., it means that when people seek out its subject matter they "known what [they] are getting [themselves] into and what range of relations and objects will likely be realized there. [They] adopt a frame of mind, set [their] hopes, plan accordingly, and begin acting with that orientation"(ibid).

​

In other words, people move from simply consuming information about hospice/palliative care to actually incorporating it into their real life scenarios. Just like I will, and perhaps you will too, someday. (That's the goal, anyway.)

​

Anyway, the words and images people consume get "transducted" (Kress 47). I like that word "transducted" - The meaning here, as I imagine Kress' usage, is the conversion of words into another form. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

Paul Gee says it's magic, Kress says it's transductive! Powerful stuff! 

​

OK. (Nerd moment!)We've looked at several websites, and they are all very similar templates for the communities of people who, rather urgently, need the services of hospice/palliative care. The associated communications practices act as anchors to serve up the specifics for audiences comprised mainly of family members, care givers, and health care professionals -  the vast majority of this audience being over the age of 45. 

 

Whether in San Diego, CA; Las Cruces, NM; or Bangladesh in India, the communication looks and feels similar. People all over the world know where to go for very specific, reliable info about palliative/hospice care in their time of need. They already know what to expect. In turn, the creators of the media for the nonprofit (and frankly, for profit) organizations know this; they give the public what they want - it is their mission and their duty, they feel,  to do so. 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet someone is left out here, dear Sofia. This is part of the reason why you and your peers might feel excluded from this discourse community yet. As extensive as the community currently is, you may not see yourselves in the hundreds of thousands of examples of communications across palliative/hospice care media. You are going to discover that you are not yet a part of the conventional equation, as you are too young, healthy, beautiful, full of life. You have places to go, things to do.

​

But please don't take your exclusion personally. They just aren't quite ready for you yet, Sofia, but they can be. Perhaps we can change that.  Almost every single hospice /palliative care organization bemoans the fact that people don't utilize services fully because they wait until the very end. 

​

Perhaps if the current genre, as effective as it presently is, extended it's message to more inclusively represent  young people in their current media portfolios, the tide could change. We need some Gunther Kress - "transduction" here! He tells us that multimodality, the combination of words, visual rhetoric, symbols - all of these things impart meaning. When used together, in different combinations, they can widen scopes of meaning (Kress, 44). I see this multimodality reaching across divides, both locally and globally, to include you in the palliative/hospice care discourse community.

​

   "[Kress] argues that in the age of multimedia, due

to the advanced technology, writing is no more

the most important means of communication

especially on the internet where images and

sounds are combined with written texts." (New Semiotics | Between Tradition and Innovation. 2013).

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

​

Multimodality! What if the images and sounds that comprise the modes of communication you currently use -  those with which you are familiar and accustomed - were integrated onto the conventional palliative/hospice organizations' web pages? Even communication expert, Barbara Fagan-Smith, back in 2011, was recommending to other communication professionals that communicating with social media was the way to go. A decade ago, she was spreading the word that the tools of communication were graduating to platforms of social media:

​

"Social media provides a great way to achieve

instant connection. It's about social networking -

 being able to engage and collaborate

through a digital medium. [...] We must

understand what the next generation

wants and needs in terms of communication,

and then we need to bring it [...]"(2)

​

So you see, the professional communicators along with educators like Gunther Kress, realize that new modes of communication utilizing emerging genres, multimodalities, and multimedia, are more effective than simply conventional static.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

Professional communicators within this genre can engage global youth, Gen X, the under-age-40's, by expanding their reach to simply include you. The trick is how to strengthen the mission without jeopardizing it, as end of life issues are sacred in most circles. Mision statements matter.

 

One suggestion is that nonprofit hospice/palliative care organizations provide links to Facebook pages, Youtube videos, and other social media to address you on their sites. But what content, you ask? Well, Sofia, did you know that there is an emerging movement of Gen X'ers who are already radically redefining their conception and relationship with death? 

​

For example, take Jae Rhim Lee, founder of Coeio: The Green Burial Company. She's a young graduate from MIT, who has developed a Mushroom Suit = an eco friendly solution in which  mushrooms "could be a vehicle for reimagining our relationship with death". Its a green funeral startup!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jae's approach is respectful and innovative. Her mission is to work "together to create a better approach to the end of life". Surely her ethos, her videos, her words, images, would  fortify as well as expand the mission that hospice/palliative care organizations have established . What do you think, Sofia?  

​

Additionally, Pinterest has a "Decompinaut" site. It is tasteful, innovative. Might some nonprofit organizations connect their mission with those of Gen X'ers working  to reimagine ingrained social norms about death and dying?

​

What about the Decompinauts Twitter feed? Why couldn't nonprofit websites simply add links to it on their webpages? Special pages for you, et.al.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

And how cool is Katrina Spade, an entrepreneur who won the Akosha Fellowship in 2018? She recently founded Recompose, a corporation "that believes in changing the current death care paradigm". She and the people in her company approach their death-work with "energy, tenacity, and joy." So basically,  after death, bodies are allowed to naturally and organically reduce, to essentially become compost, to recompose! The discourse community on Recompose's webpage combines eco-composition with eco-recomposting, and guess what? You're invited to this  conversation - so there's hope!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how about it, Sofia? Are you curious? Are you ready? I so want you to be able to tackle this while you are young and open to the expansion of thought and transformation of action? My hope for you is that you may one day take a deeper peek into all this. Perhaps more young, lovely people will follow your lead. Perhaps one day I will find that the discourse communications for hospice/palliative care has expanded to include you. Wouldn't that be a kick?

​

So now, what do you think, Sofia? Are you ready to shake up a discourse community?

​

You know that I love you,

 

Aunt Bird

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

​

​

1. Bazerman, Charles. 2001. The Rhetoric and ideology of Genre. In R. Coe, L. Lingard, & T. Teslenko (Ed.s), Genre and Identity: Citizen in the Age of the Internet and the Age of Global Capitalism.(pp.13-37). Hampton, Pr.

2. Coei. “Chapter 1: MIT to Mushrooms”. The Story of a Green Burial Company. Accessed February 20, 2021. coei.com/coei-story/

3. Fagan-smith, Barbara. “The Changing Role of the Communication Professional”. International Association of Business Communicators | IABC.

March 21, 2011.

4. Jae Rhim Lee. "TED: My Mushroom Burial Suit". October 14, 2011. youtu.be/_7rsd1fiUc.

5. Kress, Gunther. “Gunther Kress, A Sketch of a Social Semiotics: Questions and Directions”. New Semiotics Between Tradition and Innovation. Accessed February 21, 2021. Gunther Kress (semio2014.org)

6. Ibid. 2004. Multimodality, Multimedia, and Genre. In C. Handa (Ed.), A Multimodal View of Genre. (pp. 38-46). Bedford/St. Ma

7. Recompose - Ecological Death Care. Recompose. recompose-life. Accessed 17 March 2021.

8. Wikipedia contributors. "Katrina Spade." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Nov. 2020. Web. 19 Mar. 2021.

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​