My annotated bibliography focuses on the tabloidisation of the media, in particular the news media of Britain and the United States as they are most often discussed and are commonly perceived as the most tabloidised.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. For inquiring minds: a cultural study of supermarket tabloids. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.
Academic author Bird gives another historical exploration of how tabloids came about by linking their beginnings to ancient folklore and urban legends. She argues that today's audience for the tabloid media is not given enough credit. She states that audiences are better educated and more aware than commonly thought. The audience does interact with and contributes to the tabloid media - they aren't simply passive. She says the lower class audience knows that the information they are getting is as false as much as upper class audience members do. This book works on the perspective of how tabloidisation affects the consumer/ audience or if it does at all.
English: Looking south from Top of the Rock, New Y...
United States
Electronic News Gathering trucks and photojournali...Engel, Matthew. Tickle the public: one hundred years of the popular press. London: Indigo, 1997.
The author of this book has an insider's view into tabloids and the media. Engel has worked as a sub-editor, writer, correspondent and columnist among other journalistic pursuits for many years. Here, he details the history of the British popular press including tabloid publications like the Sun. He contends that the newspaper industry is a repetitive one which is forever recycling itself. Through the use of examples he proves that the publication of sensationalist material and tablodisation are not just recent developments but that the practice has happened for hundreds of years.
Ferrell, Jeff and Neil Websdale. Making trouble : cultural constructions of crime, deviance, and control. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1999.
This book shows us that the media has always used sensationalism...