Abstract: Nowadays,digital mourning has become a unique way of media memory.When some individual lives are gone,tens of thousands of "strangers" mourn on social media,forming a special bond.This study takes the deceased of “celebrities” and “ordinary celebrities” as cases,and explores the generation mechanism,significance and contemporary value of strangers' digital mourning of the deceased public figures from the perspective of the theory of Continuing Bonds,focusing on the characteristics of the continuing bonds in the Chinese context.The study finds that mourners establish bonds based on five motives:information compensation,spiritual imagination,emotional tree-hole,fixed rituals,and memory writing,through which they renegotiate the deceased's identity in order to extend the deceased's personality and obtain guidance for their lives;the public and social nature of connections strengthens the group experience,allowing mourners to enjoy the sense of intimacy and trust brought by the community,and to fight against forgetfulness through rituals,which in turn facilitates the discussion of public issues.The continuing bonds in the Chinese context are characterized by a particular temporal rhythm,and its expression of mourning has a tendency towards pragmatism.The bonds with Chinese characteristics originate from the post life world belief model of "death is like life",as well as the "eternal" imagination provided by digital technology.These bonds are beneficial for individuals to cope with the sense of loss and confusion caused by the phenomenon of death.It is a way of emotional resonance in the digital age and also provides a possibility for social trust reconstruction.

Key words: digital mourning, public figures, continuing bonds, digital death, collective memory