James Carey, ancient journalism professor, believed in news as ritual (something he may have got from Hegel).

A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.

So is ritual a better way of understanding the Madeleine McCann story? Surprisingly few people have mentioned it, given the length of time Carey’s views have been around.

American sociologist, Orrin Klapp, in his quirky tome Overload and Boredom: Essays on the Quality of Life in the Information Society, lists some basic social rituals:

• “You are not alone, we are all together” – rituals of solidarity
• “We are like brothers” – the ritual of kinship extension
• “Do not worry. Things will work out all right. Something you do not understand is working for you” – a language of reassurance…
• “We hold this to right and self-evident” – moral affirmation

Klapp (crazy name, etc.) wrote:

there is little argument about the importance of ritual (and its redundancy) for society, since it helps people feel more together – solidarity and fullness of emotional life being two important consequences of communicating by ritual. For societies it means maintaining sentiments necessary for social structures…

Perhaps part of the ritual of the ritual is that we don’t examine our participation in it, for fear of weakening it.

And rituals that are delivered by the invisible hand of the information market? If that’s not magic…