Religion, nation, media. National mourning in Poland after 1989

Authors
Radosław Sierocki
Pages
pp. 357-373
Abstract
The aim of the paper is analysis the ways media (polish newspapers) deals with the death and grief in the time of national mourning. Media are obligated to commemorate somehow the victims of the disaster that was the reason for declaring the national mourning by the national authorities (usually the president of Poland). Media gives also the instruction, how the mourning should be experienced by those, who are the members of the nation (national community), and sometimes – I claim – the media “do” the mourning work (mourning rites) for us and instead of us. So reading and watching/listening to the media “in time of national mourning” is – in fact – experiencing the national mourning”.
Keywords
national mourning, national disaster, liminality and communitas, the media coverage.