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I/W w/ Neal Curtis on the Royal debate: November 7, 2018

I/W w/ Neal Curtis on the Royal debate: November 7, 2018

I/W w/ Neal Curtis on the Royal debate: November 7, 2018 I/W w/ Neal Curtis on the Royal debate: November 7, 2018, 13.12 MB
Wednesday, November 7, 2018

We are sure you would have seen, to some extent, the media coverage of the Royals visit over the last couple of weeks. You wouldn’t have heard it here on b but we’ve decided this week to revisit for a particular reason. Why exactly do people get royally excited over the royals?? Why does the media take the opportunity to put out multiple stories every day on the royals? Why do we still care? Why was there no formal acknowledgment of day in which the Declaration of Independence was signed here in 1835? Why did they not go up to Waitangi for a visit?

 

We’re also looking at anti-govt movements this week for Worry Week, and while that term itself is a little limiting Lillian's instructed the Wire team to think broadly about this, as usual. So in this case Lillian wanted to see whether there was also a threat to democracy at hand when everyone is so distracted by the royals. What does that mean for society engaging with its government? And how detrimental could that be...

Neal Curtis is the head of Media and Communication here at the University of Auckland. He is also an immigrant from Britain who has now been here for 7 years. Lillian wanted to see his thoughts on the media attention the royals received, but started by asking what his relationship to the monarchy was as a British New Zealander.