Tabloidisation

The thesis of dumbing down or tabloidisation in relation to British press is contradicted by the evidence of a thriving broadsheet sector and a declining tabloid market.

Recent quantitative changes in the newspaper content have been a result of a growing competition and concentration of ownership in the hands of conglomerates and media moguls, who use their papers as vehicles of power.

Advertisers, politicians, journalists and editors all influence the newspaper content but the ultimate power lies in the hands of the proprietors, not their employees.

This exercise of power will vary from proprietor to another but its existence is undeniable.

The press is active and quite consistent in its support of powerful, established interests and promotion of “social democratic” consensus.

Political bias, lower standards, powerful proprietors, gossip, scandal, human interest and invasion of privacy are all part of the British newspaper industry but newspapers are unique barometers of their age.

They indicate more plainly than anything else the climate of the societies to which they belong (Baistow 1985).

The readers have themselves constrained and reined in the worst excesses of the press, and the public opinion expressed through newspaper readership is now a major factor driving editorial policy throughout the newspaper sector (McNair 1999).

British newspapers may be biased and controlled by market logic, but they are unique in that they are used for entertainment as well as information, they are democratic but within the constraints of dominant capitalist ideologies.

Each paper has its distinctive style, character and layout. The consumer can choose between a number of titles and the competition makes the papers more interesting.

British newspapers simply reflect the ideologies and character of the British nation to a much larger extent than US newspapers reflect the character of the US nation.

The content of British newspapers may be conservative and capitalist but it is never dull.

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