Tabloid Journalism (original) (raw)

Communication, 2014

Abstract

The term tabloid is often traced back to Alfred Harmsworth, who used the term in 1896 to describe the size of his British newspaper the Daily Mail. Early tabloid newspapers were recognized by their compact size and oversimplified news content, which made them accessible to non-elite readers. Currently, the term tabloid applies to all news media—regardless of platform or trendiness—and refers to stylistic and content dimensions of news messages. Within the tabloid market, however, distinctions are drawn between daily newsstand papers and weekly supermarket publications. While the daily tabloid papers share some elements of the news agenda with the mainstream press (e.g., both cover political stories and election campaigns), the weekly tabloids emphasize scandal, sports, and entertainment (see Sparks and Tulloch 2000, cited under Cross-National Comparative Work). Some of the early research on tabloid journalism was inspired by (and supported) criticism that emerged from high-minded public intellectuals and elite journalists in the late 1800s. Certainly the tabloid was—and perhaps still is in some circles—viewed as a corrupting force that soiled the sacred mission of journalism to inform the public. Indeed, some of the early research echoed this normative stance. Historians were the ones to bring context and nuance to this moral panic, and later on cultural studies scholars made the tabloid a legitimate cultural product, worthy of serious scholarship. Along the way, a few quantitative scholars offered evidence to suggest that tabloids might help—not hinder—informed citizenship. John Langer’s Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the “Other News” (Langer 1998, cited under Struggle for Definition) forcefully entangled these research streams in arguing for the relevance of tabloid news as a symbol of cultural values and as an information tool. Key scholarly outlets and the advances (theoretically and methodologically) in this relatively young and somewhat disjointed area of research will be reviewed in this bibliography.

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