When television becomes the sacred center of the identity community. Media coverage of ceremonial events on Vietnamese Television

Abstract

In today’s societies, the sacred center moves from traditional ritual spaces to media space (Couldry). The representation of the King’s two bodies (Kantorowicz) persists in the media coverage of power, in order to legitimize its domination by relying on hegemonic values, and, from a broader perspective, to advocate cultural and identity nationalism. The analysis of the retransmission of two ceremonial events by the Vietnamese TV Newscast attempts to look into this issue.

Keywords

• media performativity
• nationalism
• ritual
• TV newscast
• Vietnam