Media Studies

TABLOIDIZATION

Tabloidization

• Definition of the tabloid

• Size and design

• Output, priorities, tastes

Tabloidization

(1)“The first sense is specific to newspapers and the

journalistic output of broadcasting. From this perspective, the tabloid is a form marked by two major features: it devotes relatively little attention to politics, economics and society and relatively much to diversions like sports, scandal, and popular entertainment; it devotes relatively much attention to the personal and private lives of people, both celebrities and ordinary people, and relatively little to political processes, economic developments, and social changes.” (Sparks, 2000: 10)

Tabloidization

(2)

“The second sense involves a shift in the priorities within a given medium, away from news and information toward an emphasis on entertainment. This usage applies particularly to broadcasting, since radio and television have historically been dominated by generalist programming policies that aim to include a diet of both journalistic and entertainment material.” (Sparks, 2000: 10-11)

Tabloidization

(3)

“The final usage concerns the shifting boundaries of taste within different media forms. […] What is distinctive about the Jerry Springer Show is that the wrong kinds of people (who are not accredited experts) talk about the wrong kinds of topics (their deeply private dilemmas and experiences) in the wrong atmosphere (that of the game show). […] Political talk has an honored place in broadcasting; it is the populist tone and the rightist content that are being denounced.” (Sparks, 2000: 11)

Tabloidization

A typology of newspapers according to the degree of “tabloidization”

• The Serious Press• The Semiserious Press• The Serious-Popular Press• The Newsstand Tabloid Press• The Supermarket Tabloid Press

(see Sparks, 2000: 12-16)

Tabloidization

Tabloidization

Definition of tabloidization - two meanings:

“The first is an increase of the market share of tabloid media as against their more serious rivals. The second consists of changes to the serious media that bring them more in line with the tabloids.” (Sparks, 2000: 21)

• technology development• market competition and ownership patterns -

commercialization• social changes (literacy, access, interests)

The Tabloidization Debate

Arguments against:

• It lowers the standards of traditional journalism.• It affects the frame of rational debate that the

public sphere should provide for citizens.• It “stultifies” audiences (no more interest in

political, economic and social issues).• It contributes to the manipulation of audiences.

The Tabloidization Debate

• Arguments for:

• It makes news accessible to large audiences (across social classes) – democratization.

• It allows ordinary people to become the subject of news.

• It makes news stories relevant to the masses (human interest stories) and memorable (due to the language and style in which they are written – conversational style).

• Tabloid news is subversive – “the defense of the tabloid takes the form of a celebration of its content as the site of popular opposition to the dominant order.” (Sparks, 2000: 25)

Tabloidization

Popular-Tabloid-Trash

Gripsrud (2000: 290-292):

“There is an obvious need for distinctions within the field of popular journalism. Many nontabloid forms and contents are popular in the simple sense that they enjoy widespread popularity, both in print and broadcast media. The conflation of tabloid and popular may thus obscure the existence and potential of a popular journalism, which is different from the forms most typically associated with the first of these terms.”

Tabloidization

Popular-Tabloid-Trash

• Popular, but not tabloid:

“Newspaper pages of TV programs devoted to local news of various politically relevant kinds (‘Should a new bridge be built?’ ‘Nurses on strike,’ and so on) could be one example and so could much coverage of health and everyday psychology, wildlife, sports, and the like. Even interviews with celebrities may well serve as examples of nontabloid but still popular journalism, for instance when they focus on the interviewee’s professional activities or life experiences with some sort of general reference.”

Tabloidization

Tabloidization

• Tabloid, but not trash:

“If there are popular journalistic forms that are not tabloid, the next question might be if there are tabloid forms that are not “trash”. The meaning of “tabloid TV” is in common usage often hard to distinguish from that of “trash TV” but such a distinction should probably be made. Trash TV includes, as far as I know, professional wrestling shows, Jerry Springer-type talk shows, certain voyeuristic kinds of ‘reality TV,’ and probably phenomena such as ‘house-wife striptease’ and other pornographic genres. What all of these have in common is a degree of shock aesthetics, or a particularly pronounced sensationalism.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SdepHtl29U

Tabloidization

“Tabloid TV” is used in much broader ways than “trash TV,” and so the two are not quite identical. There are forms of tabloid news magazines, for instance, which may be rubricated as tabloid but are closer to mainstream television than shows like Springer’s. The emphasis on the personal and personalization as a rhetorical device might suggest that The Oprah Winfrey Show belongs to the tabloid category, but it would not at all be fair to label it trash. When Oprah moved her show to Los Angeles after the L.A. riots and let those rebelling in the streets speak for themselves, and in a form of dialogue with opponents, she made innovative use of television in the service of democracy.” (Gripsrud, 2000: 290-292)

The National Enquirerhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/enquirer-star-group-

inc-history/

The Enquirer/Star Group, Inc. (year 1991)

“the best-selling supermarket tabloids in the United States”: the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, the Star, and Soap Opera Magazine

“ With investigative reporting on such sensational stories as alien spacecraft sightings in New Jersey and head-lines such as 'Cher: I haven't had sex for 10 months!,' the $1.25-a-copy National Enquirer and Star enjoy a combined weekly circulation of seven million. Only TV Guide sells more copies.”

The National Enquirer “The National Enquirer, the Group's flagship publication,

traces its history to 1926, when newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst lent his protege William Griffin money to found the New York Evening Enquirer.”

“In 1952, Generoso Pope, Jr., son of the founder of New York's Italian language daily newspaper Il Progresso, purchased the Enquirer for $75,000. Pope planned to gradually change the format of the paper to that of a national news-feature weekly. He dropped the paper's Democratic partisanship, increased its staff, and added a new, anonymously written 'world-wide intelligence column.' Although Pope initially said the newspaper would not convert to the tabloid format, the paper became a tabloid in 1953.”

The National Enquirer

“The greatest change Pope instituted, however, was in the paper's editorial content. Gory stories of murder and mutilation became regular features. Confessions such as 'I'm sorry I killed my mother, but I'm glad I killed my father,' appeared. […] In 1957, the paper was renamed the National Enquirer. Pope broadened its focus to include national stories of sex and sadism and also expanded its distribution.”

The National Enquirer  “Sales grew steadily, despite content so offensive

that the Chicago Transit Authority temporarily banned its sale at station newsstands. By 1966, however, sales had reached a plateau at 1 million copies per week, prompting Pope (who had once again taken control of the publication) to clean up the paper's image. […] In 1978 circulation peaked at 5.7 million copies, and slid to just under 4.6 million by 1981. The decline was attributed to the growing number of competing supermarket tabloids, including one created by Pope.”

The National Enquirer

“Generoso Pope, Jr. passed away in October, 1988. Several of the world's leading publishing companies bid for the family-owned business, including Diamond Communications, Maxwell Communications Corp., and Hachette S.A. In June, 1989, GP Group Acquisition Limited Partnership (a partnership created by Boston Ventures Limited Partnerships III and IIIA and Macfadden Holdings, L.P.) purchased the operations for $413 million in cash.”

Tabloidization

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGYXyP0vMEc• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRK9HsknlQc

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2AlqRjtUpc

References:

• Connell, I. 2004. ‘Personalităţile din mass media populare.’ In Jurnalismul şi cultura populară. Trans. by R. Drăgan. Iaşi: Polirom, pp. 77-94.

• Fiske, J. 2004. ‘Popularitatea şi politica informaţiei.’ In Jurnalismul şi cultura populară. Trans. by R. Drăgan. Iaşi: Polirom, pp. 57-74.

• Gripsrud, J. 2000. “Tabloidization, Popular Journalism and Democracy.” In In C. Sparks and J. Tulloch (eds.), Tabloid Tales: global debates over media standards. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 285-300.

• Niţulescu, V. 2004. ‘Cu televizorul preziceţi viitorul.’ In Dilema Veche, I (33): 7.

• Postman, N. 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death: public discourse in the age of show business. London: Methuen.

• Sparks, C. 2000. “Introduction: The Panic over Tabloid News”. In C. Sparks and J. Tulloch (eds.), Tabloid Tales: global debates over media standards. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 1-42.