#MoreInCommon: Collective Mourning Practices on Twitter and the Iconisation of Jo Cox

The murder of Jo Cox MP on 16 June 2016 brought the UK EU Referendum campaign to a shocked standstill, as reports emerged that the killer had shouted ‘Britain First’ after shooting and stabbing the MP. This chapter examines the role of the aesthetic and symbolic in the tweets shared by those responding to Jo Cox’s death. I demonstrate how linkages between popular culture forms, visual tropes and symbols were deployed by those both expressing their identification as an emergent compassionate collectivity and, to a lesser degree, those who articulated their support for her murderer’s actions.

The visual sharing practices on Twitter re-cast Jo Cox as a retrospective public figure whose values are to be admired. In becoming a publicly recognisable figure in the wake of her violent death, Jo Cox’s values become crystallised by the creative efforts of others, who form a community around her image and political vision.