Till death do us join: media, mourning rituals and the sacred centre of society

Recently within media research, there has been an intensified discussion on the notion of ritual and the relationship between ritual and the mass media. This article offers a comparative historical perspective to this debate. We look at events that have been publicly signalled as 'national tragedies' within movie newsreels and public broadcaster's news from the 1950s to the 2000s, to see how media reporting of mourning rituals has changed. We ask how have the mourning rituals reported in the media been involved in 'joining us together' and what kind of 'sacred centres of society' have been constructed through the reporting of mourning rituals? Our study suggests that the media constructs mourning rituals, whether religious, civic or national, as inclusive and affirmative, constituting the church and the state as well as itself as key centres of society.