Tabloid Tales Global Debates over Media Standards

by Sparks, Colin; Tulloch, John; Zelizer, Barbie; Bird, S Elizabeth; Brookes, Rod; Calabrese, Andrew; Golding, Peter; Gripsrud, Jostein; Gulyás, Ágnes; Hallin, Daniel C.; Hayashi, Kaori; Klein, Ulrike; Macdonald, Myra; McLachlan, Shelley; Peck, Janice; Rhouf

• ISBN13: 9780847695720
• ISBN10: 0847695727
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-22
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky saga followed in a long trail of media exposures of the more personal details of the lives of public figures. Many commentators have seen stories like this, and TV shows like Jerry Springer's, as evidence of a decline in the standards of the mass media. This increasing interest in private lives and the falling off of coverage of serious news is often described as Otabloidization.O The essays in this book are the first serious scholarly studies of what is going on and what its implications are. Reality, it turns out, is much more complex than some of the laments suggest. As the contributors show, this is not just a U.S. problem but is repeated in country after country, and it is not certain that the media anywhere are getting more tabloid. What is more, there is no consensus about whether tabloidization is just Odumbing downO or whether it is a necessary tactic for the mass media to engage with new audiences who do not have the news habit. Tabloid Tales will be of interest to students and scholars in journalism, mass communication, political science, and cultural and media studies.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Barbie Zelizer
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction: The Panic over Tabloid News	1	(40)
Colin sparks
Part One: Are the Tabloids Taking Over?	41	(88)
Political Space and the Trade in Television News	43	(20)
Andrew Calabrese
Does Tabloidization Make German Local Newspapers Successful?	63	(12)
Klaus Schonbach
Tabloidization in the British Press: A Quantitative Investigation into Changes in British Newspapers, 1952--1997	75	(16)
Shelley McLachlan
Peter Golding
Thirty Years of Competition in the British Tabloid Press: The Mirror and the Sun 1968-1998	91	(20)
Dick Rooney
The Development of the Tabloid Press in Hungary	111	(18)
Agnes Gulyas
Part Two: Tabloid Journalism in Perspective	129	(82)
The Eternal Recurrence of New Journalism	131	(16)
John Tulloch
The ``Home and Family'' Section in the Japanese Newspaper	147	(16)
Kaori Hayashi
Talking about the Tabloids: Journalists' Views	163	(14)
Mathieu M. Rhoufari
Tabloidized Political Coverage in the German Bild-Zeitung	177	(18)
Ulrike Klein
Tabloidization, Media Panics, and Mad Cow Disease	195	(16)
Rod Brookes
Part Three: What Implications Does Tabloid Journalism Have for Society?	211	(90)
Audience Demands in a Murderous Market: Tabloidization in U.S. Television News	213	(16)
S. Elizabeth Bird
Literacy, Seriousness, and the Oprah Winfrey Book Club	229	(22)
Janice Peck
Rethinking Personalization in Current Affairs Journalism	251	(16)
Myra Macdonald
La Nota Roja: Popular Journalism and the Transition to Democracy in Mexico	267	(18)
Daniel C. Hallin
Tabloidization, Popular Journalism, and Democracy	285	(16)
Jostein Gripsrud
Index	301	(12)
About the Editors and Contributors	313