Page - 13 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

12 | Anna-Katharina Höpflinger and Marie-Therese Mäder www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 7–21 to the public invited to gather just outside the church and kissed each other (fig. 8), not even family members with front-row places within the church could see the episode from in front (part of the core royal family stood behind the couple). From amongst those actually present, only those invited to be immedi- ately outside the church, many of them equipped with smartphones to photo- graph the special moment, could enjoy this public moment live. The television coverage simultaneously disseminated this long-expected mo- ment to people viewing their screens in the streets and at home. For once they were the privileged ones – a cellist entertained the guests in St. James’s Chapel until the bridal couple left the church area in their coach, greeting the people gathered in the streets. The nominally privileged guests in the church were un- able to enjoy this moment, with no one daring to use a smartphone to watch the live transmission. In the case of the wedding of Prince Harry and Markle, the media brought new complexity to the representation and reception of this ritual as well as to its production process. The public and private spaces overlapped, allowing a diversity of perspectives that generated and multiplied a complex narrative, which thereby became about more than just one single event in space and time. Lingenberg proposes that public and private spaces are defined by practices ac- complished by people.9 This example demonstrates that the media are part of such practices. In entering private spaces, media practices turn them into public spaces that are then in turn consumed in private spaces, for example from a screen at home or in the streets. BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION The royal wedding of Markle and Prince Harry was received in various media that included television, internet journals, and blogs as an important and novel link between the tradition of the British royal family and an innovative integra- tion of African American culture.10 For example, the Right Reverend Michael B. Curry, who gave the sermon, quoted Martin Luther King Jr., and the Kingdom Gospel Choir, a gospel choir performed the song “Stand by me” (fig. 9), firstly released in 1961 by the American singer-songwriter Ben E. King. This royal wed- ding thus is a good example of the interaction of tradition and innovation: it was traditional in form but included creative, even unexpected, ritual aspects. This combination is increasingly common for today’s Western (understood cultur- ally, not geographically) not-royal weddings. A research project undertaken by anthropologist Hilde Schäffler has shown that while contemporary weddings in 9 Lingenberg 2015, 177. 10 Even Wikipedia mentions this link; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_of_Prince_Harry_ and_Meghan_Markle#Reactions [accessed 11 July 2018].