ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of television in constructing Princess Diana's life and death. It describes reporting in the week after Diana's death, highlights some of the key themes during this period and demonstrates how the camera, sound and editing effects of television were 'moving' in a way less accessible to radio or press coverage in isolation. Diana rapidly became a cathartic object of grief, a symbol of hope, caring, and community, and bearer of many grand themes from personal transformation to 'people power', from woman as 'victim' to woman as 'survivor'. While Diana's image was repeatedly displayed, her voice was rarely heard. Footage of the Princess was literally muted. The final theme in Diana's post-mortem emerged in representations of public reaction to her death. While the 'nation in mourning' was represented in all the media coverage, it was the television images which most insistently presented a 'seamless unity in grief'.
