6rebro University School of Humanities,
Education and Social Sciences May,2012
The World in a Tabloid ormat
The metamorphosis
of the written press.
Study case: Swedish local and national newspapers.
MA Thesis
Global Journalism
Supervisor: Am:ia Roosvall Author: Alexandru Nastase
market at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States of America. "The New York Sun was sold in the streets for one penny, and its customers were the rising American working class." (Ornebring & Jonsson 2008:29)
On top of that, in the subchapter called "Short history of the popular written press" I briefly explain the inception phase of this type of journalism.
Another element of distinction between the tabloid and the quality newspapers is of course the
content. The tabloid newspapers are exploiting a market niche that the "classics", afraid not to
lose their reputation and prestige, are reluctant to fill. The subjects and topics left out by the quality newspapers have easily found a place between the pages of the tabloid newspapers. And these subjects can vary from celebrity gossip to sexual advices.
The other important aspect that makes a clear difference between the two types of media is the
tone of the articles with a language much more accessible for the ordinary reader in the case of
the tabloid newspapers resulting in large and colorful illustrations and simple sentences whose understanding does not require the help of a dictionary.
Having these three particularities in mind a potential reader can easily differentiate a tabloid newspaper from a quality newspaper.
In my thesis I have handled this issue extensively in the attempt to identify which are the main reasons behind those editorial decisions that tend to sensationalize otherwise ordinary facts. Just how far can the tabloid newspapers go with the sensationalism? This represented a vital question in my journey to unravel the mysteries of tabloid journalism and to discover the mechanisms behind any decision that a journalist makes in order to stir up the curiosity of the audience through catchy titles but unsubstantial articles.
The main aim of this paper is to unravel the reasons that constrain a big number of Swedish journalists to sensationalize their writings and reports and at the same time this thesis will _examine some of the most noteworthy consequences that tabloidization has in the Swedish
written press both at a local and national level.
In the present study the following research questions were answered:
-Research Question I. How do Swedish journalists relate to quality vs. tabloid editorial
practices and routines? What influences their stands?
Research Question IL How do Swedish journalists cope with the day by day professional
challenges in a globalised and extremely commercialized media market? How tabloidization does relate to this?
In order to receive proper and trustworthy answers concerning the phenomenon of tabloidization I have interviewed face to face eight local and national based Swedish journalists. In the final analysis of this research the result of this thesis will hopefully help us to a better understanding of this controversial phenomenon oftabloidization.
1.3 Background
1.3.1 Short history of the popular written press
The written press is a form of expression that promotes the freedom of thoughts and that contributes in shaping the public opinion. The written press contributes to the exchange of ideas an� pluralism of ideas.
Today, the media constitutes a persuasive tool which allows us to stay in constant communication with the various social, political and economical events both nationally and internationally. The need for information is one of the fundamental needs of any society. The public curiosity always aroused, in some way or another, the great storytellers of world's history. Starting with the Ancient Greeks and continuing with the medieval troubadours, the storytellers very often served as communicators and information emitters. The concern as well as the strategic importance of keeping and describing the war stories of the great events from Homer to the end of Middle Ages gave rise to great works that can be related to the journalistic reports of our days. "Launched in 59 BC in ancient Rome by Julius Caesar, Acta Diurna Populi Romani was a script account of the news of the empire. As an official publication of Caesar's government, the Acta Diurna circulated to the rich and powerful in the empire" (Endres 2009) More than that, back in ancient times, in order to meet their administrative needs, the great empires were creating networks and channels of collection and dissemination of information,
-4-etc.) and, on the other hand, a significant development of the periodical press, from various magazines to specialized publications passing through from newspapers dedicated to women to publications for children. "The processes of change were complex, and as the cost of printing fell and mass readerships were built up, the content of those newspapers which did not claim to be quality newspapers included more entertainment and less information." (Brigs & Burke 2002:158)
In this fast changing environment the written press witnesses a revolutionary phase in its existence: the appearance of the popular press or how we call it in this paper, the tabloid press. The tumultuous beginnings of this new type of press identify themselves with two important names: that of Joseph Pulitzer and that of William Randolph Hearst. The newspapers these two journalists were running at the end of the nineteenth century were sold with only one penny and portrayed the last stage of popular journalism.
"The penny press was novel, not only in economic organization and political stance, but in its content. The character of this originality is simply put: the penny press invented the modern concept of news." (Schudson 1978:22)
In 1878 Pulitzer bought two old newspapers and launched Saint Louis Post Dispatch, in which he bravely experienced the new popular journalism of various facts and "human" stories. In 1883, he bought New York World, exploiting sensationalism limitless. "It was common for penny papers, covering a murder trial, to take a verbatim transcript of the trial and spread it across most, or all, of the front page." (Schudson 1978:23)
The second important name associated with the birth of the popular press is Hearst, the son of a millionaire from California. In 1895 he comes to New York where he launches and begins to sell with just one 1 penny, New York Journal. Hearst uses the full influence of his newspaper to support different political causes.
As a common characteristic, these newspapers of Pulitzer and Hearst had news with big headlines that were very attractive, with abundant illustrations, well adapted to the mentality and extremely 1:udimentary culture of the primary mass of the new immigrants and day by day workers. These newspapers also successfully imposed the fon.nula with comics and stories without words. One of the
