The British Tabloid Culture

Gautam- We have a number of tabloids in the US. In many cases, these papers are sold at supermarket checkouts.

I would say that most of the stories written there have either a germ of truth, and are sensationalized completely out of proportion, or have absolutely no basis in reality.

Over the years a few celebrities have sued the tabloids. (Can't remember who offhand. Can anybody help me?) In most cases, the celebrities are just happy to let the stories die a quiet death. To make a point of the stories would only fuel the fire.

For some reason, people seem to revel in the misfortunes of others. The tabloids apparently pander to this desire of people to see the rich and famous toppled from their pedestals. Personally, I think that the whole tabloid industry is a disgrace to the name of journalism.

When I was a teenager in the 1950's, we had what were called "Movie Magazines. These magazines would gossip about movie stars. I never remembered any malevolence in them, though.

They have been on British news stands since I was a kid back in the 40s. They've moved ever onward ever since. "The Redtops", as these journals are known, are pathetic and their only value is of being used as wrappers for trash or trash bin liners.
Only the dumbos, the brain dead read them

But the problem is that their popularity never seems to wane !! I have been struggling to understand why do people read them. I know sensation sells, but surely people are not dumb enuff to realize that the stories are not even half the truth !!

John, would be fascinating to hear yr take on this. If you say that only dumbos or brain dead read them, then surely majority of this country *is* brain dead !

Hi G. ======== The tabloids, like many TV channels, they cater for the lowest common denominator in society. Words of one sylable, naked women, sensational headlines. Gossip and scandal are the primary route. The destnations, TV progs and faces, football and horse racing. So the route they follow is very narrow and has few if any diversions.

The people who read them come from all strata of society, all ages and are both male and female. These people want a paper they can read on the way to work or over coffee. The Redtops make no great demand on anyone, they can be scanned/ read ? in less than 30 mins. To my mind they equate with the majority of people who watch shows such as Eastenders or Corronation Street. They are people who, it seems to me, are totaly incapable of thinking for themselves.

Literacy without knowledge.
With a tabloid, you semi-read semi-information, and you semi-process it. You're looking for cheap thrills, a passtime.
At the same time, you're imitating-mocking the "serious" middle and upper class readers.

Why are tabloids so popular in GB?
My guess is: because there is no alternative for the semi-reader.

In Mexico we have tabloids. One is popular -but stagnant in readership-, the other imitates.
The popular one used to have great headlines: "Nero Sang" (the arsonist of a night club confessed) or "Mexicans have no balls" (scarcity of eggs).
Now they cheat so roughly: "Rafa Marquez crashed (in black) and he killed her (in red)". You read inside... the Rafa Marquez who crashed is not the Barcelona defender, and the man who "killed her" is an unrelated story.

So what does the uneducated Mexican read?
Cowboy and trucker stories, in cheap comic books, for most males.
Romance stories, in cheap comic books, for most females.
Millions of copies of these are sold daily.
The best-selling tabloid doesn't reach 200 thousand.

Carol Burnett sued the National Enquirer over a specious report that she had assaulted a waiter in a restaurant. She retained counsel and lined up her witnesses, despite a lot of well-meaning advice to let the matter drop--and a good deal of condescending comment in the "mainstream press." She persisted, the Enquirers attorney's eventually stipulated editorial irresponsibility to end the case (which was costing more money than they were willing to spend--tabloid "journalism" is about greed), and then settled with Miss Burnett to cut their losses. The tabloids have had a hands-off attitude toward Miss Burnett ever since.

I think a lot of celebrities consider this sort of thing beneath their notice, and others subscribe to the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity. The more sensationalist rags even have an "oh-my-god-i-can't-believe-this" appeal to otherwise intelligent readers. I saw one the other day with an obviously doctored photo of two young ladies in bikinis (perhaps a single young lady in a doctored photo made to look like twins) and a screaming headline about "siamese" twins looking for a husband to share. I think OAK is only partially correct about the readership--i think there a great many truly ignorant people in every society, and a significant number of basically stupid people, and these sorts of papers appeal to them, when those papers with higher journalistic standards either bore them or mystify them with articles they are unable to read and understand.

When you look at the

National daily newspaper circulation June 2003

you'll notice that tabloids are in lead. (And you don't get them just at supermarkets, Phoenix! They are even sold at international newsstands in Germany as well)

The tabloid week provides, what was top in last week in the UK - in the tabloids.

I often wonder if the tabloids readership is making a statement abt the state of education in the country.

And doesnt someone wake up and do a proper study on the effect this is having on the society. I mean I agree with freedom of press and all that stuff, but this is getting a bit too much.

Harry Potter Gay ? Give me a break !!

Sentata
could perhaps be extented with "i-always-know-that" - at least here in Germany, with "Bild" as national tabloid (even a "compulsory reading" for our government and MPs!) and a couple of regional ones.


(I like this recent example from the German tabloid:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9418

When I compare the "Daily Morror" from 2 November 1903

to the one from yesterday

What 100 years can do! :wink:

[link: BRITAIN'S 100 LEAST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE - headline from the frontpage]

One can say that people read the tabloids for a laff, for a gossip, for a trivia chat. But its not all page 3 girls and celebrity scandal thats in the pages of these rags. They do report on the news of the day, too, and their take has an immense impact. Its not for nothing that they say that Blair could only be elected, back in 97, because he was the first Labour leader in eons who achieved a good relationship with The Sun. Same with Schroeder and Bild in Germany, in '98, I believe (Walter?).

Especially on news topics where an emotive angle is quickly found, the impact of the tabloids is enormous. Where crime and immigration interconnect (supposedly), for example. The British tabloids have whipped up a veritable frenzy about asylum-seekers, in particular. The result is that when Brits are asked how many asylum-seekers there are in Britain, or what proportion of refugees worldwide Britain is hosting, they overestimate the figure manifold. And the link asylum-seekers = profiteers/criminals has been firmly entrenched in the collective subconscious by spate after spate of sensationalist articles.

Cause thats the problem - even when you also read the Times (or whatever), or also watch BBC news, and you say that, of course, thats who you believe in the end, the emotive stories of the tabloids will still have lodged their impact in your emotional, subconscious perceptions, in your gut. Which you can tell from the speed with which prejudices and myths about, for example, asylum-seekers spread.

These tabloids really wage a campaign on an issue like that, if they ctach on with how quick and direct an impact it can have (and how it can thus boost their sales). I heard stories of journalists who were told to rewrite their stories to make them more agressive regarding the 'dangers' asylum-seekers supposedly pose. Or whose altogether not unreasonable stories on the issue were superimposed with a scandalising headline and suggestive picture - and thats what people remember, when they put the paper aside again ...

From: The Art Of Bad Taste : The British Tabloid

Now who wants to go debating the choice of words in those rags of papers, one might ask - you know they write trash. But you got to understand the impact of these reports. Like I said, Brits will now habitually overestimate the numbers of asylum-seekers tenfold, not to mention the connotations they have acquired about them. This results directly on pressure to politicians to "clamp down" on this "out of control" problem.

In the local elections in the UK this year, the 'skinhead' British National Party made new inroads, winning seats across the country. Most were in deprived, post-industrial, multicultural neighbourhoods. But some were in wholly different places, where the asylum-seeker 'flood' is a mere ghost-image, conjured up by the tabloids. One seat in the prosperous South East was won by a BNP candidate who campaigned overwhelmingly on the asylum-seeker issue - though in actual fact not a single asylum-seeker is housed the community in question. Something no resident of the community will believe, as broadsheet and BBC reporters found out when they went to discover what was up. ("Mythical refugees help BNP win white suburb")

One actual BNP candidate, Simon Darby, himself summarised it perfectly, when he gleefully said:

(On the stump with the BNP)

Link of the day: http://www.article19.org/docimages/1626.pdf, or: "What's the story? - Sangatte: a case study of media coverage of asylum and refugee issues"

nimh, as usual yr posts are full of insight and highly fascinating....

I just shudder to think the long term impact of the seeds of haterd these rags are sowing - while claiming to be "crusaders" against the things which are wrong in the UK.

Funny thing is that people who are capable of setting things right - don't give a damn abt this stuff, and people who can't do jackshit abt this, are the ones who are getting elected based on these "newspapers"

tabloid and culture in the same sentence - isn't that an oxymoron??

"sub-culture"

sub used as in substandard, submarine etc??? =beneath?

Yes, it's similar ("subculture: an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish it from others within an embracing culture or society < e.g. a criminal subculture >").