The Gerry Ryan show on 2FM and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales: a case-study, September 1997
McCarron, Ciara
(1998)
The Gerry Ryan show on 2FM and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales: a case-study, September 1997.
Master of Arts thesis, Dublin City University.
In the modem world, there are a proliferation of media choices available to the discerning, (and not so discerning), audience. It is a rare moment indeed when, in the crowded television, radio and print media schedules, something approaching a united front occurs, and only one subject is debated, only one topic is talked about, everywhere. The number of times this has happened could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The death of Diana, Princess of Wales was one such media moment.
For those of us who were not around for the death and funeral of John F. Kennedy, this was the first media-event we experienced, in terms of the tragic death and funeral of such a world famous person. And the coverage was phenomenal. Entire British television and radio networks stopped in their tracks, abandoned schedules and talked incessantly about the many angles and implications of the loss of the Princess in a fatal car crash in Paris. Myriad opinions, speculations and tributes bombarded the audience for a week, from the day of the death, (31st August 1997), to the day of the funeral, (6th September 1997).
My interest here is how this spectacle affected the Irish public / audience / media consumer. As The Gerry Ryan Show on 2FM often reflects the 'feelings' and 'emotions' of stories, whilst leaving the 'hard news' side of things to the information programming on RTE Radio 1, I decided to use this one show, over one week as a case-study of how the Irish general public reacted to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Metadata
Item Type:
Thesis (Master of Arts)
Date of Award:
1998
Refereed:
No
Supervisor(s):
McBride, Stephanie
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Death in mass media Case studies; Radio broadcasting Social aspects Ireland Case studies