Tabloid Television and News Culture: Access and Representation

Erin Robinson & Andrew Wood

Project 180°: Tabloid Television & News CultureWine & Cheese

Fencing with Alex and Rob

Project 180° (2008) 26 HBO 8–10pAward winning journalists Erin Robinson and Andrew Wood investigate the many sides of tabloid television and news culture (120 minutes)

Follow the Road…

• Tabloid Culture

• Irreverent Coverage

• Two Arguments

• Storytelling

Huey Lewis and the TV News

• The word ‘tabloid’ has taken a derogatory turn for the worse

• Think of ‘Television News’ as a cultural institution which produces meaning

A WAKE FOR TELEVISION NEWSA WAKE FOR TELEVISION NEWS

The ‘Lament’ for Television Journalism• Television News is, and always will

be, a business.• Television News is overly

dependent on images and sensationalism• TV News traffics in trivialities/

deals with emotionalism

THE CREATION OF TABLOID TVTHE CREATION OF TABLOID TV

HIGH FLAMES & CRYING NUNSHIGH FLAMES & CRYING NUNS

• Television has critically undermined the Television has critically undermined the relationship relationship between democracy and its citizensbetween democracy and its citizens

• The ‘Lament’ argument fails to… The ‘Lament’ argument fails to…

The ‘Not-so-serious’ Serious News

• Recognize television news as a form of cultural discourse

• See how television news creates a ‘communicative power’ that can be used for ideological study

• Think of TV News as a ‘genre’ film

• What has worked in the past, works today

• Treat the TV News program as a ‘cultural text’

• It then becomes a cultural artifact

Gratuitous Graph Shot

Sports

Fluff &HumanInterest

Commercials

No News

News Summary

Advertising Rules

Who won the game?

Cat in a Tree

Economic Collapse of the United States

Start to Take Away These Points• The ‘Lament’ argument

sees TV news in a decline, moving away from its informational model

• It argues that TV News can be a ‘window to reality’

• TV news can also be seen as a ‘cultural discourse’ with a distinct communicative power

• By acknowledging TV news as a ‘cultural artifact’, meaning is produced through its images.

• This meaning leads to deeper latent messages concerning irreverent news.

The Especially Remarkable

Holding Power

Powerless Elite

Acting-as-he-never-does . . .

The power of‘The’ Triumph

Victims & Tears

Norm & Agent

• Disruption of normal routines

Accounts & Witnesses

• Newsmakers no longer narrators – merely capturing the story• Overlapping points create emotional charge

Impact

• Looking Backwards via remaining evidence, good victims and images that trigger sympathetic responses

Communicative Power

Domination

• Making your fate

Subordination

• Subject to fate

• Lived reality: Physical, Psychological, Personal, Social and Economic

This World is a Dangerous Place

• Irreverent coverage ------ popular wisdom

• Someone is always worse off….

• Who dares, wins.

• Leave it alone

• Stray bullet story

• English channel swimming report

Token YouTube Clips

• Stray bullet story

• English channel swimming report

Questions

• Do you see irreverent news stories as important? Can they be seen as cultural texts?

• Why do we allow news to be pleasure-giving versus informational?

And now it’s time for …