Abstract
Media events are large events that interrupt the normal broadcasting schedule and normal audience activities, obtaining special coverage and special attention. State funerals, royal weddings, diplomatic visits, Senate hearings, and the Olympic games are representative examples. In these cases an agency independent of the media sponsors an event, with a claim to historical importance. The media validate that claim by interrupting their normal schedules for live coverage. The audience delivers the final validation by granting the media event their special attention. When successful such events have an integrating effect on societies, working as secular ritual. The media event is not merely media coverage of important events, but a new social form in which the original event, the media coverage, and the activities of the audience at home unite in a form of dispersed ceremony. This raises a host of questions for analysts about the power of communication, the possibilities for participation at a distance, and the potential misuse of ceremonial forms and audiences.
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