Tabloidization and Mainstream papers

What is a tabloid?

An example of a tabloid front page

A tabloid is a newspaper/magazine/newsletter that can easily be identified by sensationalised content. It has screaming headlines talking of sex-scandals, mostly. Stories in a tabloid have an erotic appeal to the public. Some of the stories under these headlines go deeper into people’s affairs, describing fully each of the relationships that one had with numerous people. Such stories also capture and showcase text messages that were once exchanged between the person in the story and his or her lovers in mobile phones.

The word “tabloid” in itself describes a compressed item. In journalism however it describes smaller newspapers that began to appear in the U.K. and the U.S.A. towards the fall of the 19^th century. As opposed to the newspapers of earlier version (which were broadsheets, hence being called broadbloids), tabloids were on s smaller spreadsheets. Their content differed from that of broadbloids in the sense that they used vulgar language, posted nude pictures, and concentrated on sex scandals and other lighter content. Their main aim was to entertain and to provide alternative content free of politics that had been hitherto dominating the mainstream news. Apart from describing the size of the newspaper, the word “tabloid” later began to describe this sensationalised content as well.

In essence, a tabloid is in every sense a less serious newspaper. If the Chronicle also leads with sensationalised news, the Metro-type as indicated in the previous blog, it can therefore be argued that it has tabloidized. Tabloidization does not only undermine the seriousness of a newspaper but it also allows the domination of trivial matters at the expense of important issues. Looking at this moment when Zimbabwe has just come out of an election, Zimbabweans are expecting to hear about how unemployment will be reduced, how industry will be revived other than how Maphala cheated on his wife for example.