The 'Fokker crisis' was the major national media event in the Netherlands as the Netherlands-based aircraft builder Fokker faulted when exposed to global competition. A qualitative reading of media coverage reveals that Fokker's future pivoted on global capitalism's impact on the relationship between the public sphere, the nation-state and industry, as various action groups reworked Fokker as an icon of Netherlands nationality. These were direct pleas within the public sphere for citizens to influence the political decision-making process. Ethnographic reception studies reveal that citizens felt powerless to act on what they perceived as an important national event. Thus a major news story contributes to a sense of powerlessness, the media not locating citizens as political subjects operating in a democratic public sphere, but rather that news is consumed as a cultural ritual enhancing social relations of domination.