ABSTRACT
The events that followed Diana’s death offer a remarkable opportunity to study the mechanisms of our media-saturated culture as they operated on a large scale. An exceptional feature of the events after Diana’s death was that, at least partially and briefly, that authority was de-naturalised, even if on a larger scale it was massively reinforced. Diana was a global media celebrity with a very broad and complex range of followers and admirers. The Diana mourning sites were also liable to be read as pilgrimage sites, first, as sites associated with celebrity and, second, as sites of mourning. Implicitly at the mourning sites through the week, and explicitly at the viewing sites on the funeral day, everyone gathered was part of a media audience, principally a television audience, since that was how most had seen the story of Diana’s death develop.
