PART 1 Chapter 2 A SOCIAL PHENOMENON
2.4 THE MAIN FEATURES OF TABLOID NEWSPAPERS
2.4.2 Tabloid style
girl is irresponsible – especially in a community such as the Cape Flats, where crimes like rape are rife.
Other researchers argue that these images contribute to women’s insecurity in public (Johansson, 2007:100). The page-three girl is not tabloids’ only contribution to sex in the media; columns, jokes and advice are usually devoted to topics on sex.
The latter could also be viewed as an approach.
Sex has become a common feature in media messages and is exploited for its ability to trigger emotional responses. Audiences’ responses to violence have been studied widely and a study in Netherlands has shown that it is one of the strongest evokers of emotion. Stephens (1997:104) suggests that violence and sex attract because of their intensity. They are closely linked to life and death.
Destruction or suffering after earthquakes, storms, foods and even wars has a strong effect on media audiences. The use of celebrities to sell products from perfume and cars to cool-drink demonstrates that the presence of stars increases t h e audience’s involvement in the story. Where the other sensational features are concerned, any story or photograph that depicts someone showing emotion heightens the emotional response from the reader (Uribe & Gunter, 2007:213, 214). According to Johansson (2007:89), the melodramatic news style is also notable in the tabloids’ use of large and dramatic headlines and close-ups of, for example, grief-stricken families, as well as what she labels
“earth quake news” (stories that are blown out of proportion). She also classifes humour as a news style that runs like a golden thread through tabloid newspapers in the form of puns and witty headlines (Johansson, 2007:90). Humour has the potential to elicit the same emotional response as sex and violence, especially with regard to relief of anxiety. Humour provides relief from every day grievances and it enables the reader to distance him/herself from the melodramatic information in the rest of the paper (Johansson, 2007:92). Pretorius (2009) agrees and states that humour plays an important role in Sondag. A sensational news style “facilitates an appeal to emotion and the recognition of human experience,” she states. Johansson (2007:91) also includes self-refexivity as a tabloid news style (for the purposes of this study, the researcher argues that self-refexivity is a tabloid approach to audiences). Tabloid newspapers often “advertise” or boast in the form of taglines, stories or headlines such as the British Sun’s headline Ex-champ gives his frst interview… to his No1 paper. The Son’s tagline, “Die Son sien alles”5 is also self-refexive and by applying these stylistic devices, the tabloids shift the focus from the journalistic process (Johansson, 2007:92). By means of this self-refexivity, tabloids become every reader’s best friend (see section 2.3.3.3).
The tabloid topics and style features should not be confused. Newspapers can present a story about sex in a non-sensational way by moving the story to the back page, giving it less space and publishing it without a photograph or a catchy headline. In this way, the paper removes the sensational and emotional features, such as sex and melodrama, from the story. Alternatively, non-sensational stories can be packaged in a sensational style: a story about a bank robbery could be sensationalised by publishing it on the front page, using large, colourful photographs, dramatic headlines and emotive language. The paper could even focus on the hostages or the robbers’ families, thereby emphasising
the story’s human-interest, violence and melodramatic features. These sensational features thus take form in the communication elements newspapers apply: photographs, graphics, language and layout (see Allan, 2010:128, 129; Smith, 2007:2–4).
Where language is concerned, tabloids speak to their readers in a clear, understandable way (Örnebring & Jönsson, 2004:287; see Allan, 2010:128, 129; Pretorius, 2009). Through their language, these papers give ordinary people access to information that was formerly only available to the elite (see section 2.3.1). Stories and sentences are short, clear and to the point to make the information more accessible to the reader (see Pretorius, 2009). Tabloids sometimes also use bullets, paragraph headings, bold text and uppercase to highlight particular words or phrases and these contribute to the digestibility of the text (see Johansson, 2007:88; Smith, 2007:19–21).
Tabloids also apply visuals and layout to reinforce their characters. The strong use of visuals such as photographs and graphics also add to the comprehensibility of the text and Johansson refers to these as “hooks”. These visual hooks are especially noticeable on the front pages of tabloid newspapers. The front pages never carry full stories: the pages are flled with teasers, photographs, headlines and short introductions to lure the reader into the newspapers (see Johansson, 2009:93). The front-page layout functions to aid the reader in establishing which stories are more important. Newspapers thus apply layout to reinforce their agenda (see Greer, 1999:126; section 2.3.2.5): stories at the top, with bigger headlines and larger photographs are often considered more important (see Johansson, 2009:93).
Tabloids focus on striking photographs with a human-interest element to attract and entertain readers (Pretorius, 2009; see Burton, 2010:234–236). Greer (1999:36), however, emphasises that a newspaper (including tabloids) cannot rely on visual communication alone: “Readers don't especially want a newspaper that just looks attractive. The heart of a newspaper is its news content and that must be good. You cannot fool readers with fancy design and layout, if there is little solid news in the newspaper. Also, if the design and layout style does nothing to enhance the news and make the newspaper easier to read, it is not worth using.” With this statement, he highlights that content and visual elements work in combination to provide readers with a relevant, useful, attractive and easy to use package (see Greer, 1999:205, 206; section 4.3.2.4). According to Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001:148), readers want relevant and engaging news. Based on Greer's statement, there is no reason that relevant news could not be packaged and presented in a fascinating and engaging way by using simple and vivid language, photographs, human-interest angles and info bars – thereby giving readers what they want, according to Kovach and Rosenstiel. Perhaps this is exactly where the strength of news tabloids lies – they are able to communicate solid information to readers in a fascinating manner.