Living in North America, individuals are exposed to all sorts of gossip based media that capture attention, promote societal standards and ultimately influence ways of thinking as a community. Tabloid and gossip based media are prevalent and very accessible in our everyday lives via magazines, websites, television and radio- to name a few. It is nearly impossible to go through a day without being exposed to some form of gossip; hearing, seeing or reading about what is news in the headlines of Hollywood or even gossip about our own lives. So what exactly is it about gossip media that causes this appeal and what functional purpose does it serve in our everyday lives?
Tabloid journalism represents language in a specific way, with the goal of drawing the reader in. Through the use of lexical language (specific word choices) that are meaningful to the reader, the tantalizing promise of a good read, the use of bold headlines and the audience's personal intrigue in the subject matter, a tabloid writer is able to engage the reader, who now has a certain level of curiosity and expectancy regarding the story. (source) In order to establish meaning and significance, a writer must focus on who the audience is, the message that is to be put forth and how will it be received (Crystal & Davis, 1969). The author anticipates what the audience wants, which is ultimately to connect with the reader on a personal level. (source)
The term “pop speak” introduced by Bagnall in 1993, has been used to represent typical tabloid language centered on pop culture, contrasting the more formalized or traditional approach of newspaper language. For example, an article that is explaining a new medical procedure is going to use language that is drastically differe...
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Additional Materials
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What’s all the ‘hype’ about this “media-controlled universe”? Cynthia L. Kemper writes in her article “Living in Spin” about how the twenty-first century has a corrupt sense of honesty. Her paper, published in “Communication World”, is generally a reaction to her findings about the new age style of communication. She bases it mostly on interviews and supports it by the many quotes weaved between her logic-based trails of thought. Appealing mostly to logos and pathos, she carries a conversational tone with her audience. This tone is abundant in rhetorical questions that she doesn’t attempt to answer. The main purpose of her article appears to be the ‘eye-opening’ factor. Kemper manages to provide a conscious effort to tell people how many different factors have affected the current generation’s ability to speak without ‘spinning’. She quotes the editor of slate, Michael Kinsley, in order to explain that “Spinning means describing a reality that suits your purposes. Whether it resembles the reality we all share is an issue that doesn't even arise”. Simply put, the author that begins her essay with a very intriguing question, “Have 21st Century Communicators Stopped Telling the Truth?”; refrains from clearly answering this very question throughout her work. In the article the author talks about the problems of people ‘coloring’ stories to make them more appealing. Modern day rules allow people to stretch the truth to sell products better among other things. She blames these ‘innovations’ in the world of communication to the new progresses in technology.
Peterson, Linda H., John C. Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne E. Fernald, and Melissa A. Goldthwaite. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. 195-99. Print.
Adler, Ronald B., Judith A. Rolls, and Russell F. Proctor. LOOK: Looking Out, Looking in. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2012. Print.
Baran, Stanley J., and Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1995. Print.
During these difficult economic times sensationalism has become more prevalent in the media. Stories involving sex scandals and child murders have taken over our T.V and internet screens as well as the front pages of our newspapers. The media bias of sensationalism has been used as a sort of escapism for readers. Although it may seem that sensationalism has just started making waves, it has been around for decades. Sensationalism has been influencing viewers and contributing to media bias since the days of the penny press. Sensationalisms long history has been turbulent, self-serving, and influential to today’s reporting practices. With the influence over readers’ sensationalism’s media bias have and will continue to affect media reporting for years to come.
Hollowell defines the major differences between traditional reporting and New Journalism as “(1) The reporter’s relationship to the people and events he describes reflects new attitudes and values; and (2) the form and style of the news story is radically transformed through the use of fictional devices borrowed from short stories and novels” (22). These two differences from standard journalism are approached in very different ways by Mailer and Wolfe in their respective novels. The reporter’s relationship to the people and events he describes will be covered later in this paper under Mailer and Wolfe’s respective motivations for writing their novels. Armies of the Night and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test each represent a different side of the transformation of the form and style necessary in New Journalism. Mailer’s novel does this through the use of the first-hand au...
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Adler, Ronald B., Judith A. Rolls, and Russell F. Proctor. LOOK: Looking Out, Looking in. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2012. Print.
The gossip industry has become popular in the last few decades. Our society enjoys knowing about the lives of celebrities. We obsess over celebrities on gossip websites, and even obsess to the extent of stalking these celebrities. This industry has impacted our culture immensely. It has tainted our culture in several ways from creating bad role models for our children to making stalking an everyday affair; either way, the media has changed our society greatly. The gossip industry has brought new entertainment for our pleasure, but it has come with negative consequences.
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In today’s society, human beings feel the need to read about other people’s lives in order to be entertained. Rather than taking interest in other activities like reading or the arts, people take interest in celebrity gossip. Society takes an interest in celebrity gossip because it is entertainment for them or it makes them feel better about themselves. Either way, people are reading more on celebrity gossip rather than picking up a good book and reading that instead. Celebrity gossip is not bad since, in a way, it is a form of news, but with gossip websites such as TMZ.com and Perezhilton.com, these websites have no boundaries as to what they put on their pages. Some stories may be interesting while others are just
Schuster, Justin. "Yellow Journalism of the 21st Century." The Politic. N.p., 28 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. .