Tabloidization and settimanalizzazione

The object of this thesis is to analyse the tabloidization phenomenon. This phenomenon took off in the Anglophone countries, where the distinction between broadsheets and tabloids has always been a clear one. Indeed market requirements restricted this gap and so the quality press began to assume some of the tabloids’ characteristics, giving birth to tabloidization. The aim of this thesis will be to analyse this phenomenon form a trans-national perspective, comparing the English and Italian situation.
To this end, in the first chapter the evolution of English and Italian journalism will be dealt with. The first, in a market-oriented standpoint, developed two different kinds of newspapers according to different kinds of targets: broadsheets for upper classes and tabloids for working classes. The Italian context is completely different as it was guided more by political interests than a market-oriented attitude. This kind of political bias was also caused by a weak industrial system. Only from the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century did the Italian system also adopt a market-oriented attitude, provoking a general change.
In the second chapter a tabloid and a broadsheet will be analysed in order to highlight the differences. Subsequently, attention will be focused on the language used by those two different kinds of newspapers.
Finally a comparison will be made between two Italian newspapers: a weekly and a daily, following the same analytical method used in the English newspapers analysis. In the last part of the chapter the tabloidization and settimanalizzazione processes will be analysed, reaching the conclusion that the above-mentioned phenomena are equivalent and that through those processes the Italian and British press are more similar than ever.