Merry Laughter and Angry Curses reveals how the late-Qing-era tabloid press became the voice of the people. As periodical publishing reached a fever pitch, tabloids had free rein to criticize ...officials, mock the elite, and scandalize readers. Tabloid writers produced a massive amount of anti-establishment literature, whose distinctive humour and satirical style were both potent and popular. This book shows the tabloid community to be both a producer of meanings and a participant in the social and cultural dialogue that would shake the foundations of imperial China and lead to the 1911 Republican Revolution.
'IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT', was the famous headline claim of Britain's most popular newspaper following the Conservative party's victory over Labour in the 1992 general election. The headline referred ...to a virulent press campaign against Neil Kinnock's Labour party, and dramatically highlighted one of the chief features of British politics during the twentieth century - the conflict between a socialist Labour party and a capitalist popular press. Labour's frequent complaints of the political and electoral unfairness of newspaper bias meant that some commentators considered that this dispute had a heritage as old as the party itself. Others, including the Labour leadership at the time, argued that despite past tensions, the 1992 election marked the culmination of an unprecedented campaign of vilification against the party. Popular Newspapers, the Labour Party and British Politics assesses these competing claims, looking not only at 1992 but both back and forward to examine the continuities and changes in newspaper coverage of British politics and the Labour party over the twentieth century. The book explores whether the popular press has lived up to its claim of being a democratic 'fourth estate', or has merely, as Labour politicians have argued been a powerful 'fifth column' distorting the democratic process. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources this book offers the first original and comprehensive history of a fascinating aspect of British politics from Beaverbrook to Blair. James Thomas is a lecturer at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, and has published articles and esays exploring the relationship between the popular press and British politics.
Introduction 1. 'Vote for Them': The Popular Press and the 1945 General Election 1.1 'Red Letters and Savings Scares': The Right Wing Press 1906-1935 1.2 The Growth of a Centre Left Popular Press 1.3 ' The National Socialists': The Tory Press and the 1945 Election 1.4 Never Again': The 1945 Election 1.5 'Among the Foremost Enemies of Mankind': The Popular Press 1945-51 2. George the Third - Or Time for a Change?': The Popular Press 1954-51 2.1 The Decline in Press Partisanship 1951-59 2.2 'Tories in a Ferment' 1962-63 2.3 'Sowing the Seeds of Discontent'; The Popular Pres and the Road to 1979 2.4 Exposing the Tory 'Black Record': The Labour Press in 1964 2.5 'Nominally Conservative': The Tory Press in 1964 2.6 'A Press Wot Lost It?' 3. Towards 'The Winter of Discontent': The Popular Press and the Road to 1979 3.1 'From Honeymoon to Divorce': Wilson and the Press 1964-70 3.2 'Smears and Forgeries' 1974: Political Reorientation 3.4 'A Winter's Tale' 1979: Political Reorientation (3) 3.5 A 'Sea Change' in Press Coverage 4 'Nightmare on Kinnock Street': Labour and the Tory Tabloids 1979-1992 4.1 A 'Loony Left': From Foot to Kinnock: 1979-87 4.2 Was it the Press Wot Won It?: The 1992 General Election 4.3 'A Double Whammy': Taxation and the Economy 4.4 The Sun Says ... 'Why I'm Backing Kinnock, by Stalin' 4.5 'A Nightmare on Kinnock Street' 4.6 'A Siege Mentality': The Effect on Labour and Kinnock 4.7 Tabloid Agendas 4.8 'Always a Bad Press?' Continuity, Change and the Reasons for Press Bias 4.9 Conclusion 5. 'Vote Conservative - Vote Blair': Labour and the Popular Press 1992-2003 5.1 'Nightmare on Major Street': An Anti-Conservative Press 5.2 Labour: From Smith to Blair 5.3 'Winning a Place in The Sun': Labour's Media Campaign 5.4 'Like Him, Shame About His Party': Press Coverage of Labour 1994-96 5.5 'The Press Backs Blair': The 1997 General Election 5.6 Why the Press Backed Blair 5.7 The Press Backs Blair Again: The 2001 Election and After 5.8 Conclusion 6. Conclusions 6.1 Depoliticisation or Politicisation? 6.2 Changes in Power, Circulation and Trust 6.3 From Good News from Politicians to Bad News from Journalists 6.4 A Right Wing Shift 6.5 From Fourth Estate to Fifth Column 6.6 A Tory Press Wot Won It?
Around the world, tabloid newspapers are routinely surrounded by a moral and cultural panic. They are criticised for lowering standards of journalism and privileging sensation above substance, ...diverting readers from serious news to entertainment, or foregoing ethical principles. However, scholarship about tabloids have also highlighted the ways in which these papers are frequently better attuned to their readers’ everyday lived experience. In South Africa, tabloid newspapers have also received much criticism in the past for their perceived superficial treatment of important news. This article examines South African tabloid newspapers’ coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, focussing specifically on a case study of the national newspaper the Daily Sun. The national Daily Sun newspaper boasts the country’s largest circulation figures. Through a quantitative content analysis of 1050 online news stories in the Daily Sun, we found that unlike mainstream front-page news reporting which was largely episodic, negative and alarmist, the majority of Daily Sun coverage was thematic and neutral. Daily Sun news coverage countered Covid-19 related misinformation and provided contextual coverage, with a large focus on the social impacts of Covid-19. The analysis concludes that despite the popular discourse of the reporting, Daily Sun reporting on Covid-19 provided readers with access to information and a focus on the micro aspects of the pandemic versus broader political issues and the views of political or scientific elites.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
How a virtual journalist in the virtual world of online gaming landed on the real-world front page of the New York Times and how his virtual newspaper chronicled the emergence of the next generation ...of the World Wide Web.
This paper addresses the subject of letters to the editor as one of the longest standing forums for public discussion and debate by ordinary citizens. To show how the voice of ordinary citizens is ...presented in letters to the editor during national election campaigns over a period of ten years (2008, 2013 & 2017), we are focusing on the Austrian Kronen Zeitung: A newspaper with an exceptionally high market share of up to 40% during the examination period, a heavy focus on the letters section with three pages per day, and a self-declared willingness to take a stance, especially during election periods. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 530 letters to the editor and 525 articles in the politics section as well as survey data from the Austrian national election study on the political positions of the Kronen Zeitung's readers, we find that letters to the editor in the Kronen Zeitung do not reflect, but complement the articles in the politics section. The tone of the letters is more negative than that of news articles, but the letters closely reflect the readers' political positions, therefore offering identification with the paper.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Structural linguistic characteristics are an important aspect of written communication. Previous research shows that linguistic complexity plays an important role in how people process information. ...With increasing popularity and readership of citizen journalism, questions of how structurally different this medium is from its professional counterparts and how this difference potentially affects readers become salient. Using automated content analysis methods, the present study investigates the differences in linguistic complexity across various citizen and professional journalism outlets. The analysis shows that the patterns of presenting political information across various media are different. These findings have direct implications for various branches of communication and journalism studies such as the knowledge gap hypothesis, language expectancy theory, and credibility research.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Less than a decade after the advent of democracy in South Africa, tabloid
newspapers have taken the country by storm. One of these papers -- the Daily Sun --
is now the largest in the country, but it ...has generated controversy for its
perceived lack of respect for privacy, brazen sexual content, and unrestrained
truth-stretching. Herman Wasserman examines the success of tabloid journalism in
South Africa at a time when global print media are in decline. He considers the
social significance of the tabloids and how they play a role in integrating readers
and their daily struggles with the political and social sphere of the new democracy.
Wasserman shows how these papers have found an important niche in popular and civic
culture largely ignored by the mainstream media and formal political
channels.
Background: Educating
the public about suicide is an important component of suicide prevention. So far, little is
known about whether common misconceptions of suicide are related to individual ...tabloid
newspaper use. Aims: This study aimed to investigate associations of time spent reading
tabloids with endorsement of suicide myths, suicide-related knowledge, and with stigmatizing
attitudes toward suicidal individuals. Method: In this cross-sectional online survey, we
assessed suicide-related knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes toward suicidal individuals
among 456 study participants in Austria together with their endorsement of five common
suicide myths (e.g., "suicidal individuals do not communicate their intent"). Furthermore,
we assessed participants' time spent reading tabloids. Results: Multivariate analyses
controlling for gender, age, education, and the time spent reading broadsheet newspapers and
watching television indicated that participants' time spent reading tabloids was associated
with higher endorsement of suicide myths as well as with a lower level of suicide-related
knowledge and a higher level of stigmatizing attitudes toward suicidal individuals.
Limitations: Due to the study's cross-sectional design, causality concerning these
associations could not be assessed. Conclusion: The present findings confirm that readers of
tabloids are an important target group for suicide education efforts.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
PDF
