On going tabloid : a preliminary analysis

This article considers whether a discernible, institutional shift towards ‘tabloidism’ has, in fact, occurred in the media, or whether it is a ‘multi-purpose metaphor’ deployed for a range of competing ideological purposes by different socio-cultural groupings. A brief, preliminary case study is herein presented on a regional Australian newspaper that has recently ‘gone tabloid’. The theoretical and initial research analysis suggest that, if the term ‘tabloid’ is to have any analytical utility, it may be preferable to view it as the product of institutional forces that foster a populist genre originating in the press but portable across media forms. This ‘tabloid genre’, like all genre types, derives its vitality not from the elimination of other genres but by self-conscious differentiation from them. The conditions under which ‘tabloid’ texts are produced are necessarily conditioned by specific social and media histories. It is important, therefore, to deploy theory and empirical research appropriate to the spaces and places where discourses of the tabloid are in play.