How Much Do You Know About Kate Middleton?

We are, I think, all aware that a royal wedding is happening next week. At the risk of adding to the already considerable amounts of yawn-inducing anticipation, it interests me because it's a perfect example of news outlets finding stories from absolutely nowhere. In the lead-up to major events like this, the papers need to keep the 'excitement' (which, by and large, they themselves create and procure) ticking over, and so you end up with mundane stories about the type of alcohol that will be served at the reception and tedious procedural bullshit. But more than that, the media also become the voice of the public. It's sort of similar to the Your Views section of news broadcasts but with an interesting twist whereby the opinions of 'commoners' (Harris Interactive actually uses that term in the poll below) become the news rather than just providing a different perspective upon it.

This type of opinion poll is interesting because nobody has a fucking clue. At the end of the day, the only thing any average person knows about Kate Middleton is what they've read in the press. The same goes for Prince William - for the most part we have no idea that he will 'make a good king' (whatever that actually means, anyway). Our perception of these things is skewed by news coverage so far that it leads 77% of the admittedly small sample to think they know whether a total stranger would be a good head of state. The only people with their heads screwed on properly are the 23% who said they weren't sure. It might well be the case that Prince William would make a superb King William. We wouldn't know; all we've seen are pictures of the happy couple posing for engagement photographs and sort-of-endearing stories about him growing up as a young royal.

One of the most interesting questions is the one regarding Camilla and Kate Middleton, because on the whole, and largely as a result of the hysterical grief over the death of Princess Diana, the press (especially from the right) generally don't like Camilla Parker Bowles. So when the Daily Mail asks:

In your opinion who would make the better queen?

the literal translation of that question is:

Of these two women that you don't (and can't possibly) know more about than the clothes they wear and the carefully chosen soundbites we've presented to you over the course of their life in the media spotlight, which one do you personally like more? Is it the old, husband-stealing, horse-faced bitch, or the young, sprightly symbol of optimism and hope with which the whole nation is obsessed?

This sort of coverage is interesting because it basically allows newspapers to gauge how effective they are in persuading the public of a particular notion. If the right-wing press had decided to demonise Middleton and publish stories about a distant and long-dead relative that was a criminal or interviews with bitter ex-classmates of the princess-in-waiting, the results of these polls would be very different indeed.

What it represents more than anything is the need for every person in the news to possess a persona lest the public be confused by the potential ambiguity of a real human being in a real situation. Kate Middleton is elegant, determined and a middle-class underdog, because that's what the newspapers decided she would be. They could have decided she was a scrounging, pandering waste of space, and found 'sources' to support that image too - it would just have been a lot more difficult to sell the 5million-page pullout section next Friday.