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IN T R O DU C T I O N
The word tabloid is an old one that derives from the pharmaceutical field, in
fact a tablet is still a name we give to a particular form of administering
medicine. The term was then transferred to the media for the narcotic effect
that both things had on their users and for the compressed form that kind of
journalism have. So in the first part of the 20
th
century the term was used to
refer to the smaller size newspapers, with short articles and a large use of
photographs and a particular concern for entertainment. This kind of
journalism was considered less serious than that practised by the
broadsheets, the newspapers characterized by a larger size and longer
articles that regarded hard news.
Academics and readers have seen that this discrepancy is being filling by
the current tabloidization trend. The word tabloidization is a fairly new one
used to indicate the process through which the quality press adopts some of
the tabloid features.
There are many definitions of this word. There is according to which tabloidization is downgrading of hard news and
upgrading of sex, scandal and infotainment Jostein Gipsrud in
8
1
says that,
abloidization... connotes decay, a lowering of journalistic standards that
ultimately undermines the ideal functions of mass media in liberal
democracies Justice G.N. Page A shift by the media away from
national and international issues of importance to a more entertainment or
gossipy style of journalism that focuses on lifestyle, celebrity, entertainment
and crime/scandal. 2
For Martin Conboy abloidization is a refinement of
a commercialized journalism which prioritized the desires of advertisers to
reach large audiences above all other concerns. 3
Colin Sparks in Tabloid
Tales says that there exists a movement of the serious media toward the
news values of the tabloids, so this change bring the serious media more in
line with the latter. And finally, in Media Circus- The Trouble with
, Howard Kurtz describes tabloidization as an overall
decrease in journalistic standards and in hard news with the increase of soft
news. Moreover, Kurtz adds that when the newspapers talk about politics a
change has been noticed looking at what voters should know in order to
1
Jostein John Tulloch (2000) Tabloid Tales : global debates over media standards, Lanham
(Maryland)/Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
2
Justice G.N. Ray (2006) Press Council of India at Seminar organised by the Public
Relations Society of India and Mass Media Centre Government of West Bengal
Tabloidization of the Media: The Page Three Syndrome the
Abaninddra Sabhaghar, Kolkata.
3
Martin Conboy (2006) Tablo id Britain: constructing a community through language
London, Routledge pag. 207
9
Tabloidization is a process that can be evaluated over a long period of time
and it is not an internationally uniform process. So, it is particular relevant
to evaluate it comparing different countries. So, in this study we are going to
adopt a cross-national standpoint.
The objective of this study is to compare the Italian press with the
Anglophone counterpart, and in particular to focus attention on the
tabloidization process among these countries.
First of all, we are going to discover the historical background of both the
Italian and Anglophone press. Then, we are going to focus on the language
used by both broadsheets and tabloids and trace differences and similarities
of the two faces of English press. And, finally, a comparison will be made
between the Italian and the Anglophone press.
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C H APT E R O N E
T H E H IST O RI C A L B A C K G R O UND O F T H E
I T A L I A N A ND A N G L O-SA X O N PR ESS
1.1 The X V I and X V II centuries
To trace the history of newspapers we should go back some five
centuries. There are different reasons that made possible the birth of
journalism:
-the Renaissance movement and the Reformation that created the
basis for a freedom of conscience, the latter putting at the centre of
the doctrine the free individual interpretation of the Revelation;
-the development of the market economy during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries that broke the everyday life and created a new
social class.
- the formation of countries with a centralised power that made
possible the birth of regular and official postal services.
11
In reality, in order to fully see these changes a long time would be
required
4
.
In the Renaissance handwritten newsletters circulated privately
among merchants in Europe. In these newsletters there were various
information that regarded the economic, political and social fields
and included also information about wars.
So, t but it gave a great help for a faster and larger spread of news.
In England, the first successively published title was The Weekly
Newes of 1622, but the first true newspaper in English was the
London Gazette of 1666.
In Italy, the first gazettes were published every seven or fifteen days
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. These gazettes coexisted
for a long period with handwritten news sheets. The cities in which
were published the first Italian gazettes are Florence and Geneva.
Before having gazette that published regularly and periodically there
was a long path to be covered.
At the beginning, the gazettes were not provided of headlines and
presented only a few foreign news that regarded the Courts and a
4
Giovanni Gozzini(2000) Storia del giornalismo Torino -‐ Milano, Mondadori Bruno pagg. 7 -‐
8
12
little bit of local news. The news included in the gazettes were
twenty days old and they were little sized with few pages, two or
four per gazette. The number of pages were raised only in the second
half of the century when the sales were supported also by
subscriptions.
5
There was a very little room for freedom because the European
monarch felt that their centralised power was threatened by the
printed news of their acts. For this reason, in all Europe the entire
press was under the control of the Lord of a given region thanks to
preventive censorship.
In England the spread of news provoked by the press worried the
Tudors. Their concern was about the maintenance of their political
authority and the stability and integrity of the realm. So, the Tudors
began to control this new technology and the flow of the political
information. In fact, the print was the object of some of the
proclamations issued in 1530 and 1538. But then, its role began to be
were widely spread by printed news pamphlets written by people
loyal to the crown.
5 Ibidem pag 15 -‐18
13
Among the proclamations dedicated to the printed material there is
the Royal Charter of 15 was founded. Thanks to their membership in the Company the
printers regulated their own output from within. The punishment for
publishing something illicit were reserved to the crown. The illicit
material circulated anyway, notwithstanding the harsh punishment it
could led, because there was a ready market and thus a good profit
margin. Often prohibition and restriction were little more than
belated attempts to prevent what was already happening: a large and
common circulation of news by the middle of the sixteenth century
that was difficult to police. It was remarkable not only for the width
of this phenomenon, but also the variety of forms that were adopted.
So, not only mercuries, pamphlets and newsletters were printed, but
also ballads and proclamations that dealt with rumours, plots,
rebellions, battles and executions.
6
In the late sixteenth century there
was also an increasing number of newsletters dealing with
sensationalised news of murderers, witchcraft and strange apparition,
issues that avoided the political and religious field. The manuscript
newsletters were or simple translations of foreign events or report of
strange happenings. They lacked of a fundamental ingredient of the
nowadays journalism: the periodicity. In addition, they were more
expensive and thus their distribution was more restricted to an elite
6
Martin Conboy (2004) Journalism. A Critical History London, S age Pablications Ltd
12-‐ 14
14
that could afford subscriptions, paid in advance. Instead, there were
the newsbooks that were read aloud to groups and were sold on
second-hand at a reduced price. There was a difference between the
corantos and the newsbooks: the first were conducted for profit,
whereas the latter, although rewarding, were on the side of the
Parliament and thus their end was political. The printed news
prompted also a series of criticism as soon as they were less linked
with the privilege and more with a more generic public and with
profit. The criticism regarded also to the untrustworthiness of news
with their exaggerations, inventions and vulgar novelty in order to
achieve their goal. But it was just the profit that attracted publishers
and printers to invest in it and they in order to survive on the market
had to detect their own audience. All this, together with the account
of contemporary stories published periodically, were the first
experimentation of journalism. Another feature of English
journalism in his first attempts was the fact that it was a product of
the capital: London.
Because of the authoritarian politics of the Tudors, the first regular
news consisted of a foreign imports such as Mercurius Gallobelgicus
published in Latin at half-yearly intervals at best. The name was due
to the ancient messenger of the classical mythology that was the
symbol of the quickness and business. It dealt with political and
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