The Black Panther Has Died

Media ecology is characterized today by the frequent airing of disruptive events. The shared experience of broadcasting is thus taken by disenchantment, fragmentation and individualization. Does this mean that integrative and ceremonial media events are condemned to disappear? What about media rituals and collective consensus? In this chapter, we argue that the Media Events category is not just an invaluable frame to understand contemporary television but it is also a vital process on the way societies re-work their solidarities, negotiate collective belonging and publicly stage social rituals. Analysing the live coverage of the funerary ceremonies of Eusébio, the Portuguese world-wide football legend, we address this major social occurrence approaching it as a death media event, a public mourning ceremonial and a tele-ritual. Media events are still a powerful example of how media plays a major role on social integration and national identity. The television broadcast of Eusébio's funeral - it is claimed - constitutes a key example, in the Portuguese society, of the integrative dimension of public events.

The Crisis of Public Health as a Media Event

The focus of the present article is on the analysis of the influence exercised by media narratives on the Romanian audience's reconstructions of social movements from January-February 2012. The analysis was interested to show what are the aspects involved in the publicizing of this media event in Romania, by focusing on the event narrative built in such a way to transmit a particular significance related to the protest movements related to the crisis of the health public system in Romania. Two research methods were used in collecting the data: a survey on two hundreds Romanian respondents and quantitative content analysis of five national Romanian newspapers. As the results show, the high consumption of mass media messages does not determine whether the public adopts the media narratives concerning the events from the beginning of year 2012. At the same time, the analysis shows that in the case of the media events that took place in Romania in January-February 2012 the impact of the media narrative on the way in which the audience from Romania rebuilt those protests was a minor one and other factors had played a major role in triggering massive mass protests in Romania.

Sport Omnibus Events as Media Shows

Inside the wider commodification process that the social field of sport has been subject to, sport events are not only about the competition itself, but they have become a global multilayered show. The ‘symbiotic relationship' (Valgeirsson & Snyder, 1986, p. 131) between sport and media made them one of the most successful entertaining products as they provide an intense spectatorship experience. The main aim of this chapter is to focus on the media-sport nexus in order to understand the impact that this hybridization process between the two social fields had on sport events? How media reflect and redefine sport competitions as media events? What are the main aspects that make sport events so competitive on the wider entertaining (media) market? Despite the undisputable transformative effects brought by sport competitions entering the media logic, I will argue that there is also a reverse effect that major sport events exert upon the media field, focusing mainly on their interruptive quality (Dayan & Kats, 1992) in terms of media and social agenda. In discussing these aspects I will narrow down the analysis on the major sport competitions, as they are the most complex media-sport constructs. The ‘fun factor' (Kellner, 2003, p. 3) and the emotional flow of the competition reach their most spectacular form through what I call omnibus events. By omnibus events I refer to major competitions on the sport global map that are defined as impressive shows, involving world wide audiences, significant number of sport acts and actors and high commercial value (i.e. The Olympic Games, The World Cup). More important, their vortextual nature (Whannel, 2002) makes them referential for the public agenda, drawing everyone's attention and building alternative ways to connect large number of people to them. The chapter will approach these sport omnibus events as media shows by analyzing their multilayered structure: the dramaturgical dimension of sport acts and its corollary management of impression, the ritual dimension of sport ceremonial practices, the axiological dimension of sport events as social values' system, the commercial dimension of sport events as products on the entertaining and celebrity market, the aesthetic dimension of sport acts as expressive media constructs and their emotional dimension in terms of spectatorship experience. On this last dimension there are two main aspects that I will focus on, one regarding the live-remote experience and the other one directed towards the multiplication process of sport competition related events (from special TV shows, social media events, to thematic parties or marketing events). Media's centrality inside the social field of sport came with a consistent spectacularization effect, contributing to sport competition becoming resourceful media shows in terms of public impact and commercial value, a process that this chapter manages to lay emphasis on by addressing the multilayered nature of such events.

The Last Historic TV Star?

History and the live broadcasting of ceremonial events have been linked throughout the 20th century. Events in the 21st century, however, especially since 9/11, suggest that the study of “media events” – those mesmerising broadcasts that have the power to historicise events instantly – cannot be limited to pre-planned, hegemonic and celebratory occasions (as was the case with Dayan and Katz's 1992 book Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History). Instead, it must be extended to include the spontaneous live broadcasting of historical tragedies. More than this, in the early years of the new millennium, critics predicted that non-integrative broadcasts (of terror, war and disaster) would upstage traditional media events. This chapter examines Nelson Mandela's funeral broadcast, and its implications for media events theory. It argues that, contrary to expectations of media events' waning fate, in the age of social media, we should not be too hasty to dismiss audience desire for shared experience and the possibilities of integrative events.

Media Events, Jewish Religious Holydays, and the Israeli Press

Religious holydays are a key element in the Jewish religious experience. While the synagogue fulfils an important role for the Jewish religious communities the majority of the Israeli population comprise either traditional (35%) or secular (30%) Jews who draw their religious identity from the wider environment like media. The media fulfil a role in the contemporary world of generating religious identity when formal frameworks like synagogue attendance are declining. One under researched question of importance is the role of the media in religious holydays. It is argued that religious holyday editorial matter contributes to religious identity in the contemporary era. This chapter focuses upon editorial content and religious holydays. The research discovered differences in editorial patterns between the different religious holydays, and between the secular and religious media. There was no major difference in the share of religious holyday advertising between the religious press and the secular press. The wide gap between the Jewish festival annual lifecycle as reflected in editorial patterns contrasts with the traditional status which the respective holyday holds in Jewish religious culture.

Critical Role of Emotions in Media Events

This contribution relates recent theoretizations of media events with the emotion theory in order to get a better picture of what role emotions play in these events. Critical view toward media events helps to understand the limitations of the claims made by those who established this concept 30 years ago: Rather than instances magically integrating society, media events are seen as struggles over the meaning in the contested media field where by far not every winning meaning enhances societal integration. Additionally, psychology and sociology of emotion gives a necessary foundation for the concise theory of emotions in the media events and guides the empirical inquiry into the subject by suggesting that research should focus on the arousing rhetoric as well as narratives interpreting this arousal and turning it into the specific emotion. The analyzed media event – political scandal – very well exemplifies the theoretical argument made in regard to media events, demonstrates the power of emotions in establishing particular versions of reality and illustrates what I call the recursive logic of media events: the fact that their meaning is established at the very end of their occurrence, whereas their event-ness is implied at the beginning with the intensive arousal attracting everyone's attention.

Twitter and Blogs in Social Movements

The main propose of this study has been to analyze how Twitter and Blogs became important media to follow Ayotzinapa terror event. This study is based on a descriptive analysis of Twitter and blogs over the Internet, which has been the principal media to cover Ayotzinapa case. For this propose has been necessary a documental analysis of Ayotzinapa case and the use of social media analytic platforms. First, Socialmention was necessary to identify the main keywords related to Ayotzinapa word. Second, Topsy social media analytic platform allowed analysis of trends over Twitter. Last, Meltwater Icerocket analytic platform was used to determine blogging trends over Internet. Keywords analyzed were: Ayotzinapa, Iguala, and Guerrero. Results suggested blogging as an important media for spreading the news event Ayotzinapa. Meanwhile, Twitter has been an important media for turning Ayotzinapa terror incident in a media event where people have joined in activism and protest movements worldwide.

Between Sports Event and Media Event

Since its first edition (1896), modern Olympic Games have represented a far-reaching sport event, because they draw the attention of a wide audience and because their “festivity” breaks daily routines. According to Dayan and Katz (1992), Olympic Games are to be considered certainly as a sport event, but also as a media event. They also state that the affirmation of media events is strictly linked to their live broadcasting on TV. This chapter aims to understand if, referring to the Olympic Games, it is still possible to talk about “media events” in the shift between their representation in live broadcasting and their journalistic reports on printed news media. Through a qualitative media content analysis, the chapter examines the way in which two Italian significant newspapers (Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport) covered the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The research shows that the analysis of Sochi 2014 as a media event cannot abstract from the current main features of sports journalism, that are hybridization, mediatization and popularization. Therefore, Sochi has represented a break of journalistic daily routine because of a journalistic coverage strongly hybridized but, on the other hand, it can't be fully considered as a “media event” because of the lack of mediatization and popularization.

The Media Event as Enhanced News Story

Social media has, over the past decade, become a significant method of communication. People can now interact with each other more easily and more frequently than in the past thanks to websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This chapter concerns itself with examining how social media has enabled the public and the news broadcasters to work more closely together. Explored are three key elements. Firstly, there is a review of literature which discusses issues of convergence and the changing nature of news production. Secondly, three major news stories from 2015 act as case studies to discuss how the public contributed to the “eventisation” of the stories through the use of social media platforms. These analytical elements of the chapter feed into the broader context, which is how a media event is now defined given the changing nature of the public's role in news production. The chapter concludes by offering an explanation as to how a media event can now be potentially driven by the public's interaction with the news organisations through social media. Therefore the overarching conclusion that is reached is that the media event as defined in the traditional sense (a live broadcast) has been superseded by 24 hour rolling news channels constant live coverage of news events and that the broadcasters are increasingly reliant on a public contribution. We now have a middle tier between a traditional news story and a media event, the enhanced news story. The final conclusion of the chapter is that it is possible that an enhanced news story can easily become a media event but we need to be cautious not to be seen to be “over eventising” some stories for the sake of filling schedules.

More Hope!

In a journal article entitled ‘No More Peace!': How Disaster, Terror and War Have Upstaged Media Events (2007), Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes offered a substantial revision of Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (Dayan & Katz, 1992). Katz and Liebes included “dark” events in the “media events” concept, distinguishing unexpected, disruptive events from the carefully scripted, integrative events that had been the sole focus of Media Events. They also claimed that disruptive events – like disaster, terror and war – have in fact upstaged more classical media events. In contrast, in this chapter I argue that ceremonial media events - as originally conceptualized by Dayan and Katz in the nineties - are still essential and powerful features of our social lives. First, I present an overview of the “pessimistic turn” of media events research and provide my criticism of it. Second, I discuss three contemporary case studies from three national contexts: the Obama inauguration (2009), the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton (2011) and the most recent World Cup (2014). These three events represent the three basic scripts introduced by Dayan and Katz: “conquest,” “coronation” and “contest.” I argue that the selected case studies (and many other events) still bring societies and nations together in our “disillusioned” media environment, providing momentary hope for local and cosmopolitan citizens.