Nostalgia from the Perspective of Intertextuality in the Newspaper Coverage: The Case of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor of Journalism, Faculty of Mass Communication, Ahram Canadian University

Abstract

This study examines the journalist’s discursive practices of nostalgia to understand how the newspapers can connect the present with the past lending the past shadows on the present events.
While the study adopts the intertextuality theory, it applies the textual analysis method to analyze the newspaper coverage of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle regarding their decision to leave their senior royal status in the family and regarding their interview with Oprah Winfrey. It aims at discovering the nostalgia in this coverage.
            The study will question the amount of coverage that included nostalgia trying to figure out whether the media reflects the past and shapes the public opinion towards the quote that says, “the history repeats itself” which was repeated in the two incidents.
It is known that after Prince Charles married Lady Diana in 1981, the media monitored and recorded every twist in their marriage till her death in 1997 and that is exactly what happened with Prince Harry when he decided to marry Meghan Markle as the media started their coverage at that time with a racist coverage stating that she is biracial as her father is white and her mother is black. In the same context, Harry is always accusing and blaming the media for what is happening in his life since he was a child as they are always interfering and last year, he and his wife opened a lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper because they published a letter written by Meghan and Harry stated that he feared “history repeating itself. … I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces”.
This study will provide some remarks on the relations between newspapers and nostalgia.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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