Royally Opinionated

It’s Mother’s Day and my whole family is sitting around the dining room table, discussing the Royal wedding between Kate and Prince William. I frankly don’t care nor do I think it’s a huge deal that two people got married, just because their lineage is classified as ‘top status’ but to each own. On that note, I couldn’t help but notice the way my family was interacting with the media. Their media interactions are heavily involved as they showed such excitement and passion as my mom and aunts went over their opinions of the wedding dress, how traditional but tasteful it was, how elegant everything was, and how handsome Prince William was, and how long Harry would be single. Their passion for this new topic in the media doesn’t just stem from it being a new event to gossip about, but its ‘the’ event. The fact that it’s a royal wedding leaves people starving for more, more detail, gossip, and news about the big day. Just as reality TV has people addicted to the TV screen, the Royal wedding is an actual event that people can watch and position themselves in the royal’s shoes and feel important, as they reflect their values and what they are watching on TV who they are as a person. For instance, my mom feels that because she is watching the royal wedding, that she is ‘in the know’, trendy, and an expert on weddings or the British Royal family. In all, many people use the media to indulge in their fantasies and live what they wish they could be like or do. They project their values onto what they are watching on television, and vice versa.

A Royal Occasion

Finally, the Royal Wedding has come…and sadly, gone! At first, I couldn’t believe the hype that was stirring up in the media (just about every outlet for that matter). For example, FB groups, newscasts, celebrity outlet, magazine and website had just about EVERYTHING you would ever need to know about the wedding before it even occurred! I know that Kate wanted to keep her dress a secret, yet outlets such as E! and Extra insisted that they knew what it would look like. Everything from the flowers to the after party was reported on. I must admit, a few days before the big day, I found myself getting really nervous for the ADORABLE couple. For starters, we all know how cute Wills is, I remember having a huge crush on him from grade school on up. And Kate, she’s adorable too! It’s fun to think that she was just a “commoner” who is now “royalty”, it’s pretty much every girls’ dream to marry a prince, isn’t it? Anyways, after seeing parts of the wedding and catching all the buzz the next day, the couple looked great. Kate had the perfect and most appropriate dress, keeping it classy but still modern. I love how the Queen let them host an after party that was planned with the help of Kate’s sister, Pippa. I feel this couple is one that is sure to last and I wish nothing best the best for them. Cherrio!

Flawed economy? Who cares, it's the Royal Wedding!

It seems that the entire world is going crazy for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Not a day has gone by these past couple of weeks that I don’t hear something regarding the count down for the wedding. Alas the day will finally arrive this Friday. However, one cannot help but question, with an event with such huge media coverage will this be in benefit for the audience and economy of England? It is set that the royal wedding will of course be televised and that it will not go under any commercial interruptions. The ITV is the public serviced network of British commercial television broadcasters; therefore ITV is then forced to screen the royal wedding without any commercial breaks under rules. Which is then going to equal to 8 million pounds in lost advertisement revenue. Although, there will be some loss in the advertisement, it is rumored that the overall wedding will bring a couple of billions in revenue into England’s economy. According to the Bloomberg British site, the economy has fallen down quite significantly this year first with an increased tax and not the mention the cutting back of approximately 300,000 public sector jobs in order to aid the budget deficit (Donaldson). It may seem that the economy will ride like a roller coaster, but yet the people of England along with the million of other viewers across the world will be cheering and glued to their TV screen Friday, all for the pure essence of entertainment.