Media events in contexts of transition: sites of hope, disruption and protest

Abstract

This article looks briefly at the past and current role played by Dayan and Katz’s media events in South Africa and speculates about their potential future. While in the past, media events have played a pivotal role in the post-apartheid state’s nation-building project, current events suggest a more frissured socio-political landscape, with three likely manifestations of the media event. The first is the enduring integrative and hope-filled event, which audiences still desire and support. The second is the disruptive, non-integrative event and the third is the hijacked media event, which see media events being targeted as sites of protest.

Ambivalent rituals of belonging: (Re)theorising hybrid, violent media events

“…Such attention-seeking tactics can be considered examples of ambivalent ritual practices at play in hybrid, violent media events, as the attention attracted by acts of violence can be appropriated by various actors. For instance, hashtags associated with an event are often "hijacked" for the purpose of gaining commercial, political, or cultural capital (Evans, 2018) and can result in a polarised understanding of belonging (Sumiala et al, 2018).…”

“…Julia Sonnevend (2016a) has called these later developments in the theorisation of media events a "critical turn". Instead of focusing on theoretical and empirical analyses of media events as ceremonial and ritual national occasions that stimulate a sense of belonging to a nation, as Dayan and Katz (1992) had, scholars in the critical tradition have focused more on the conflicting, global, and digital character of media events (Evans, 2018;Fox, 2018;Mortensen, 2015) and analysed them using a framework of terror, disaster, and war. These studies conceptualise media events as ritual disruptions of social cohesion and polarising performances of non-belonging in society (Liebes, 1998;Nossek, 2008;Sumiala et al, 2018;Valaskivi et al, 2019; see also Katz & Liebes, 2007).…”

From Media Events to Expressive Events: An Interview with Daniel Dayan

“…Some do not even try. Thus, for a long time, South Africa was the "pariah" of the democratic community (Evans 2017). At one point, it hosted a string of Media Events That such events were picked up internationally was a major form of recognition.…”