This edited collection brings together a range of contemporary expertise to discuss the development and impact of tabloid news around the world. In thirteen chapters, Global Tabloid covers tabloid developments in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australia, and both Eastern and Western Europe. It presents innovative research from eighteen expert contributors and editors who explore tabloidization as a phenomenon, and tabloids as a news form. With an awareness of historical dynamics where tabloids played a role in national news media systems, it brings the debates around tabloids as a cultural force up to date. The book addresses important questions about the contemporary nature of popular culture, the challenges it faces in the digital era, and its impact on a political world dominated by tabloid values. Going beyond national borders to consider global developments, the editors and contributors explore how the tabloids have permeated media culture more generally and how they are adapting to an increasingly digitalized media sphere. This internationally focused critical study is a valuable resource for students and researchers in journalism, media, and cultural studies.

Coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky saga followed in a long trail of media exposures of the more personal details of the lives of public figures. Many commentators have seen stories like this, and TV shows like Jerry Springer's, as evidence of a decline in the standards of the mass media. This increasing interest in private lives and the falling off of coverage of serious news is often described as Otabloidization.O The essays in this book are the first serious scholarly studies of what is going on and what its implications are. Reality, it turns out, is much more complex than some of the laments suggest. As the contributors show, this is not just a U.S. problem but is repeated in country after country, and it is not certain that the media anywhere are getting more tabloid. What is more, there is no consensus about whether tabloidization is just Odumbing downO or whether it is a necessary tactic for the mass media to engage with new audiences who do not have the news habit. Tabloid Tales will be of interest to students and scholars in journalism, mass communication, political science, and cultural and media studies.

The Tabloid Culture Reader provides an accessible and useful introduction to the field.

An examination of the rise of tabloid television and the political, cultural, and technological changes that have enabled its success.

Less than a decade after the advent of democracy in South Africa, tabloid newspapers have taken the country by storm. One of these papers -- the Daily Sun -- is now the largest in the country, but it has generated controversy for its perceived lack of respect for privacy, brazen sexual content, and unrestrained truth-stretching. Herman Wasserman examines the success of tabloid journalism in South Africa at a time when global print media are in decline. He considers the social significance of the tabloids and how they play a role in integrating readers and their daily struggles with the political and social sphere of the new democracy. Wasserman shows how these papers have found an important niche in popular and civic culture largely ignored by the mainstream media and formal political channels.

"An unrepeatable feat, a tour de force." --The Washington Post Book World In Tabloid Dreams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler dazzles with his mastery of the short story and his empathy for eccentric and ostracized characters. Using tabloid headlines as inspiration--"Boy Born with Tattoo of Elvis," "Woman Struck by Car Turns into Nymphomaniac," and "JFK Secretly Attends Jackie Auction"--Butler moves from the fantastic to the realistic, exploring enduring concepts of exile, loss, aspiration, and the search for self. Along the way, the cast includes a woman who can see through her glass eye when it's removed from the socket, a widow who sets herself on fire after losing a baking competition, a nine-year-old hit man, and a woman who dates an extraterrestrial she met in a Walmart parking lot. Tabloid Dreams weaves a seamless tapestry of high and low culture, of the surreal, sordid, and humorously sad.

This book provides a timely and important summary of tabloid journalism in Africa, which clearly shows how tabloids in the African context play a unique role in the democratization process. Prior to this book, very little was known about how tabloid journalists operate in Africa. The book first explores the global practice of journalism and then focuses on tabloid journalism – finally situating the discussion within the African context. As well as concentrating on how tabloid journalism can be seen as part of the broader neo-liberal thinking in Africa, in which democracy and freedom of expression is promoted, it also looks at how tabloid journalism practice has been met with resistance from the alliance of forces. Chama draws on examples from across the continent looking at success stories and struggles within the sometime infotainment genre. Tabloid Journalism in Africa concludes that even though challenges exist, there is a strong case to suggest that the practice of tabloid journalism is being readily accepted by many people as part of the unique voices of democracy – even those which might be shocking yet true.

This book, the first of its kind, investigates the historical trajectory and current situation of popular journalism in the People's Republic of China. Taking a popular cultural perspective, the book redefines “popular journalism” as a particular journalistic genre and media form and applies it to conceptualize popular journalism in the Chinese context. In particular, it examines how the dynamic and complex interplay of politics, the market, culture, and communication technology in shifting contexts has shaped the changing landscape of popular journalism in contemporary China. Meanwhile, regardless of how these factors might have changed over time, the fundamental nature of popular journalism as a source of fun and a troublemaker against elite powers in China, as in other places, has remained. The book further argues that the historical development of popular journalism in China forms an important and integral part of the country's social-cultural fabric and ultimately illustrates the mediated ideological and cultural struggle between popular/public and elite/state discourses in the country’s everyday social life in its challenging and discursive transition to modernity.

This volume draws on insights from a diverse group of scholars and practitioners on issues of justice and law and integration, identity and economic development, cultures and community building, and power and peace. The authors reveal the complexity of global justice as a contested ideal.

“Hollywood's Hottest Couple Exchange Mystery Rings!” “The Truth Behind Screen Beauty's Pregnancy Rumors!” “Song Diva Sneaks Past Airport Security and Lands Behind Bars!” “TV's Favorite Childhood Star Faces Drinking and Drug Charges!” “Teen Beauty Downplays Anorexia Rumors with Hot Dog!” “Hollywood's Favorite Funnyman Has Secret Love Child!” “Couple Goes Head to Head in Custody Battle!” Who writes these stories? Marlise Kast used to. In fact, she was so good at it, at such a young age, she was considered a “tabloid prodigy.” Marlise, the daughter of a minister, grew up in a loving, conservative, slightly sheltered family, and aspired to a career as a respected journalist or television news anchor. She was perhaps the least likely person to become a star reporter for Globe. But, right out of college, with a journalism degree and few job prospects, she became a tabloid writer, playing the high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with some of Hollywood's hottest celebrities. There was almost nothing Marlise wouldn't do to get the story behind the celebrity facade. Dumpster diving and hiding in the bushes were child's play compared to ploys like posing as a drunk to crash one star's wedding or bluffing her way through the L.A. Police Department to confirm the DUI of another celeb's daughter. Using a combination of charm and brains, Marlise convinced co-workers, waiters, bouncers and bartenders to confess the juicy secrets of Hollywood stars. On the red carpet and VIP guest lists, she assumed countless identities, including those of a florist, a tennis player, a mourner, and a bridesmaid.Along the way, though, Marlise continually wondered: was she abandoning her principles in exchange for a shot at celebrity reporting? Torn between her journalistic duties and her moral responsibilities, Marlise tried to ignore the battle with her conscience, telling herself this wasn't a permanent job, just a stepping stone to a more respectable career. Right? This riveting and entertaining memoir is full of her outrageous-but-true tabloid experiences. Marlise's narrative details the behind-the-scenes deals, manipulations, and deceptions used to break the big stories. In an industry where turnover is high, and loyalty low, Marlise survived multiple bosses, a rotating roster of photographers, professional shenanigans, terrifying situations, and comical predicaments, as well as legal threats from some of the celebrities and “personalities” she wrote about. She eventually wrote over 200 articles for the tabloids. Her biggest story, though, is the one she's never told before; how-after a dangerous high-speed chase, a corporate betrayal of her trust, and the doubts that continued to plague her-Marlise came face-to-face with a story her conscience would not allow her to tell. After so many years of lying about who she really was, Marlise had to discover her own truth. As this riveting memoir reveals, her redemption is more honest and personal than any celebrity news she's ever reported.