Succulent Sins, Personalized Politics, and Mainstream Media's Tabloidization Temptation

This study uses an experiment to analyze how mainstream journalism’s use of tabloid writing techniques affects online credibility. Participants read four news stories and rated their credibility using McCroskey’s Source Credibility Scale. Participants found stories written with a tabloid style less credible than more traditional stories. Tabloidized soft news stories were more credible than tabloidized hard news stories. Results suggest that online news media may damage their credibility by using tabloidized writing techniques to increase readership. Furthermore, participants were less likely to enjoy stories written in a tabloidized style. An application of act utilitarianism suggests that tabloidization is an unethical method for increasing news readership. DOI: 10.4018/jte.2012100104 42 International Journal of Technoethics, 3(4), 41-53, October-December 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. practice, however. The method also might be utilized to increase the audience of the media and to increase their knowledge of news and information (Gans, 2009). This paper is an effort to understand the effects of online news tabloidization on credibility. The study will look at how readers evaluate the credibility of stories written with the tabloidized format compared to how they rate stories written with a more traditional journalistic style. A more traditional reporter’s story would stick to the facts and get to the point of the story, whereas a tabloidized story might include sleazy wording or unnecessary intimate details designed to grab the reader’s attention rather than inform him or her. In addition, the researchers will consider whether tabloidization is more accepted in certain types of stories, such as feature pieces, as compared to hard news stories. The study also asks how the media should respond to tabloidization pressures. In addition to studying participant responses to tabloidized content, this study will apply normative ethical theory to the tabloidization of online media, thus applying philosophical theory to the field of technoethics. Journalism ethics is concerned with how journalists make decisions that force them to weigh multiple values against one another (Plasiance, 2009). Ethics is concerned with the process that is utilized as decisions are made (Walker, 2000). Technoethics, on the other hand, focuses on ethics as it relates to technology throughout society (Luppicini, 2008). By using act utilititarianism, the researchers will examine how online journalists should address the challenges of technoethics and whether utilizing tabloidization for media survival is an acceptable ethical practice. Tabloidization of the Media Tabloidization can result from competition, technology, and the desire for circulation. News organizations have essentially restructured, redesigned, and degraded their content in an effort to survive. Tabloidization can be viewed as a way of appealing to advertisers above other competing interests (Conboy, 2006). The deregulation of the media has been cited as one reason that current affairs programs in multiple countries have become increasingly commercialized. The programs have reverted to a hybrid format that is a combination of news and reality television (Baker, 2006). Not all countries are experiencing the same level of tabloidization, however. Research suggests that the increase of democracy in Brazil resulted in a less tabloidized, and less politically affiliated media (Porto, 2007). An increase in media privatization and deregulation in India, on the other hand, has led to more entertainment news and fewer public service-oriented stories (Rao & Johal, 2006). Signs of tabloidization can be found in some of the earliest mass media (Tulloch, 2000). Scholars have cited several characteristics as signs of tabloidization. It has been described as an increase in entertainment coverage, a decrease in long stories, an increase in shorter stories with illustrations, and an increase in informal language within news stories. The concept “implies a ‘contamination’ of the socalled serious media by adopting the ‘tabloid agenda’” (Esser, 1999, p. 293). Tabloidization results in lower journalistic standards, an increase in sleazy tales in place of thoughtful political pieces, and a transition as to what journalists feel audiences need to know about a politician’s capabilities for office (Kurtz, 1993). An overall increase in visual elements such as photographs and large headlines are another sign of the tabloidization process (Rooney, 2000). While many news organizations are developing a tabloid style, mainstream news organizations tend to avoid using the term “tabloid.” Journalists have cited the complexities of trying to maintain a serious journalism tradition while reverting to shorter, less complex news stories (Rowe, 2011). Although males and females do not acknowledge it to the same degree, audiences say they enjoy reading tabloid stories. Both sports and celebrity gossip pieces are considered particularly entertaining (Johansson, 2008). Some scholars argue that those decrying the tabloidization of the media should consider International Journal of Technoethics, 3(4), 41-53, October-December 2012 43 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. that the media is a complex entity featuring multiple types of journalism. One should not try to distinguish merely between tabloid media and traditional media (Harrington, 2008; Peters, 2011). Furthermore, traditional news stories share some of the same characteristics as tabloid stories. For example, both types of media embrace emotion (Peters, 2011). Tabloidized stories also do not necessarily contain more emotional elements than more traditional news stories (Uribe & Gumter, 2007). While much scholarship criticizes the tabloidization of the media, there is some indication that tabloidization may have positive effects, such as giving the media a way to reach the readers of teen magazines (Nice, 2007). Using journalistic methods to reach large groups of people may not be at the heart of the journalist’s professional interest, but in a sense tabloidization or “popularization” could, and perhaps should, be used to increase the audience for news (Gans, 2000, p. 21). Ensuring that the public consumes plenty of news is increasingly important as we operate in an increasingly global society. As Gans (2000) explains: “Although the news media cannot chase away real and imagined demons, and there are other limits to what they can do and whom they can reach, they can try harder to get the news out to the people who may unknowingly need it most” (p. 27).