Journal Articles

Constructing the public at the royal wedding

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This article examines the way ordinary members of the public, who were present at the celebrations for the 2011 UK royal wedding, were constructed in the televised coverage of the event on the BBC and ITV. It draws on theories of media events and on theories of the mediated construction of the views of ordinary citizens, and focuses on the way vox-pop interviews and inferences about what the public thinks were used by the two television channels. It argues that by presenting the people on the scene of the celebrations as a homogenized group which thought and acted as one, by inferring what was in the mind of this group and what they would say if they spoke, and by allowing individual members of the public relatively little flexibility in expressing themselves in their own terms during vox-pops, the coverage contributed to a dramatization of the event and at the same time constructed public acceptance of the centrality and significance of the day. Moreover these techniques functioned as an invitation to the viewer of the broadcast to identify with the group, its thoughts and emotions.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Media Culture & Society

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications., 2012

Collation

p. 296-311

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0163-4437

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 34 Number 3 April 2012, p. 296-311

Subject(s)

construction of citizenship
royal wedding

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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