A Visible Presence: Royal Events, Media Images and Popular Spectatorship in Oscarian Sweden

Abstract

This chapter adopts the perspective of those at the receiving end of royal soft power: royal subjects. While much historical research has focused on royal personages’ strategic and symbolic power demonstrations, the public reception of these communicative efforts has remained under-explored. However, newspapers and magazines provide us with the means to establish a connection with the crowd that constituted the historical public. The reign of King Oscar II of Sweden (r. 1872–1907) forms the backdrop for a case study that explores the concept of the historical public by deliberately looking away from the royals, directing its gaze towards the subjects looking at the royals, and towards the reporters looking at the subjects looking at the royals.