Digital representations of martyrdom

Since the earliest days of Christianity, a wide range of media have been used to record, amplify and circulate the memories of those killed for their beliefs or actions. In the Digital Age, the Internet has facilitated the creation and dissemination of martyrdom narratives. Today, traces of the lives and deaths of martyrs abound in the virtual world. Yet, despite the proliferation of research within the field of religion and internet studies there is to date little scholarly debate on digital representations of martyrs. It is this lacuna that this chapter seeks to address by analyzing six examples, describing the online representations of the lives and martyrdoms of Christians from the primitive church to the present. Through these case studies we explore what, if any, novel changes the Internet brings to the creation, commemoration and remembrance of martyrs.