slutet på sagan prinsessan dianas död i press, radio och tv

A changed media world
Why did Princess Diana’s death effect the
enormous media attention it did – and
with this particular content? The Princess
was certainly a celebrity, but her death
intensified this status. Some answers can
be found in the changed conditions for
media and news activity, which have farreaching
importance for journalism’s form
and content, especially in terms of what is
given priority. The great media interest in
Sweden for Princess Diana’s death probably
depends largely on the factors specified
below.
We have seen rapid changes in the global
media system during recent years.
The technology is developing at increasing
rates, while the media industry has
grown explosively. The international foundation
for media activity has changed at
the same pace. In control is no longer an
owner who is a media expert, but instead
large investors: media companies have
become interesting objects of investment.
Among the consequences are dramatically
increased competition – oddly enough,
combined with co-operation and standardisation
of media content – and increasingly
strong financial control of editorial
processes. For the news-services, this is a
question of – to put it simply – finding
more and more news that can be cheaply
produced and that also attracts the largest
possible audience.
The consequence of this process for the
news is, among other things, that the dramaturgic
mode of expression has become
increasingly central. This varies greatly,
of course, among the different news desks.
The news has always consisted of
stories based on fragments of reality (and
must be if it is to reach its audience). The
news has a special logic, and due to this
1 Bourdieau, 1998.
170
logic, actual events and circumstances are
presented in a certain manner. The news
deals with individual people, usually from
society’s elite and sometimes people with
whom the audience has built up some
kind of social relationship. Princess Diana
was precisely such a person; the media
saga of her life became a serial that ran for
many years and ended as a classic tragedy.
Her sudden death in an accident was
an event with almost maximal news value,
judged in traditional terms, but also
an event without any real significance or
relevance.
It is easy to agree with the ideas of the
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieau, according
to whom the media are governed
increasingly by commercial logic. The primary
driving force is advertising proceeds,
which means that media concentrate on
news items sure to attract a wide audience.
Recognisable codes and tension-creating
dramaturgy serve to polarise, rather than
facilitate, mutual understanding. Competition
in the media world also leads to
an ever-increasing tempo and a great deal
of recycling and redundancy in the information
provided. One crucial and basic
rule is that it is important to be first. Things
that are not new tend not to exist at all.
Bourdieau’s views primarily concern television
– the overall most dominant medium.
But we can by and large generalise
to all media forms; those that differ – that
are less affected by commercial pressures
– are actually exceptions. In the Swedish
media system, such exceptions are fairly
common, although no medium can ignore
the fact that it is operating on a commercial
market. Swedish public television still
plays a prominent role, as does public
service radio. Moreover, Sweden still has
– in proportion to population size and