The death and funeral of the former King Constantine II became a major news event. Obeying the requirements of the attention economy, combining various aesthetic codes, electronic media present news about celebrities, elite people and elite countries in such a way as to ensure the maximum possible share of the available national audience in the conditions of communicative competition. In this context, they systematically produce plausible mediated realities in the sense that they obscure the staged and “constructed” nature of the news report.

For about a week, the Constantinos series nearly monopolized news, talk shows, and print coverage. Once again, hyperpromotion has worked, amplifying and multiplying, so that the specific agenda of the media – mostly digital and electronic – seems to be identical to that of the public. In other words, the media attention to the death and burial of “the man Konstantinos Gliksburg” was disproportionate to the interest of the townsfolk in the whole affair. A vivid example was the case of the first official visit of the royal family to Greece on February 15, 2003, in order to hold a memorial service at the tombs of Kings Paul and Frederick. That day, in capitals and major cities, millions of Europeans simultaneously opposed the impending military intervention in Iraq, prompting Habermas to declare it the founding date for the emergence of genuine European public opinion. So, on that day, a major national television station with a news director of an extremely famous journalist decided to send a film crew that followed on foot and broadcast “live” the family’s journey to different parts of the territory, completely ignoring the big mobilization. for the world that it happened in Athens and elsewhere. The next day, if I remember correctly, the news director apologized for the mistake. Of course, this incident was very different from the death of the former king, an event with strong emotional overtones, at least for those familiar with and nostalgic for the monarchy.

In parallel with the media hyper-propaganda – before, during and after the mourning ritual – there was an intense political confrontation, also indirect, which more or less, I think, refers to two combined phenomena: a) “apolitical hyper-politicization”, in the context in which the discussion “then” functioned as a way around other serious issues, or even as an artificial pretext for partisan noise and petty arguments. b) In doubts about the mental stability of the Third Hellenic Republic: as if some burden of the past is secretly hemming the democratic legacy of the post-colonial period. As if to say, that is, that our democracy has nothing to fear, but at the same time not to believe it too much, so that we suddenly have “anti-queens” in the absence of a kingdom.

If, however, overt anti-royal sentiment constitutes a paradox in the context of a stable presiding parliamentary democracy, is there any curiosity about anything trivial if we dig up the ashes of the unmanifested predispositions of nostalgic monarchists? Or do we risk in this way rekindling a dynastic ethno-romance that can be counted among those who receive the torches of the Golden Dawn and its offshoots, and even among those who still remember the flaming palm tree as a sign of dictatorship?

The attention of the media to the funeral of “the man Konstantinos Gliksburg” was disproportionate to the interest of the townsfolk in all this.

As has often been said, the extreme right exists everywhere as a “complex alchemy” and needs active political thinking and action on the one hand, and more organized scientific participation on the other, in order to identify and understand individual currents and currents. groups included in its composition, as well as material and non-material-emotional motivations of their members. This is an important task at a time when “hatred of (constitutional) democracy” is growing amid multiple crises.

It is not uncommon for various social attitudes and dispositions to escape the field of view of researchers, either because they are dormant, or because they do not give obvious signs, or because, finally, the cognitive interest of political sociologists is directed to something else, maybe perhaps more pressing issues of “official” politics. However, the hidden predispositions and party sentiments of the electorate are not expendable and short-lived details. Therefore, political sociology should, among other things, focus on informal and “discrediting” political subcultures, study their dynamics and attractiveness, so that several thousand pilgrims to the body of the former king would not be too surprised, but would appreciate him as a phenomenon. to its correct size.

Mr. Nikos Demertzis is Professor of Political Sociology and Communications at EKPA, President of EKKE.