Tauranga Public Lecture by Professor Gareth Schott

'The Talking Dead: How physical death is no longer a barrier to ongoing connection and social activity in the digital age' by Professor Gareth Schott

As a media psychologist, Professor Gareth Schott explores how digital media is transforming our relationship with the dead and our own mortality. His research explores how death no longer signifies a full severance of social bonds — instead, he considers the various ways the deceased can now persist online, sparking new forms of interaction and mourning.

This talk will introduce how social network platforms, memorial pages, and AI powered chat (or grief) bots, synthetic selves or digital avatars enable the deceased to assume an active presence in a ‘post-self’ afterlife. He considers the psychological benefits and risks of keeping the deceased active in social spaces. Particularly as thana-technologies (or death tech) reconfigure traditional rites of bereavement by allowing a kind of digital presence that can be comforting or unsettling.

Ultimately, his research underscores greater death awareness in light of a broader shift in the digital age toward death no longer erasing one’s social presence. Instead, it metamorphoses into new forms of connection—raising profound questions about identity, remembrance, and the boundaries between life, memory, and mediated presence.

Event Details:

This Tauranga Public Lecture will be held in Room 2.03, (lecture theatre) on Level Two, University of Waikato Tauranga Campus, starting at 6pm. Light refreshments will be available from 5.15pm.

Parking is available across the road at the Spring Street Parking Building.

The Tauranga Public Lecture Series is a free community event and open to the public to attend. Registration is essential.

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About the Speaker:

Professor Gareth Schott is a media psychologist specialising in the intersections of media, technology, and human experience. His research spans video games, film, and digital culture, with a particular focus on how media shapes our understanding of death, mourning, and memorialisation in the digital age.

He has published widely on game studies, media representation, and digital afterlives, and is the editor and author of the recent book, The Art of Dying: 21st Century Depictions of Death and Dying.

Combining psychological insight with cultural analysis, his scholarship explores how evolving media forms influence identity, memory, and human connection across life and death.