1. Tabloid Television and News Culture: Access and Representation
Project 180°: Tabloid Television & News Culture
Wine & Cheese
Fencing with Alex and Rob
Project 180° (2008) HBO
8–10p
Award winning journalists Erin Robinson and Andrew Wood investigate the many sides of tabloid television and news culture (120 minutes)
Erin Robinson & Andrew Wood

2. Follow the Road… Tabloid Culture Irreverent Coverage Two Arguments
Storytelling

3. Huey Lewis and the TV News
The word ‘tabloid’ has taken a derogatory turn for the worse
Think of ‘Television News’ as a cultural institution which produces meaning

4. A WAKE FOR TELEVISION NEWS
The ‘Lament’ for Television Journalism
Television News is, and always will be, a business.
Television News is overly dependent on images
and sensationalism
TV News traffics in trivialities/ deals with
emotionalism

5. THE CREATION OF TABLOID TV

6. HIGH FLAMES & CRYING NUNS
Television has critically undermined the relationship
between democracy and its citizens
The ‘Lament’ argument fails to…

7. The ‘Not-so-serious’ Serious News
Recognize television news as a form of cultural discourse
See how television news creates a ‘communicative power’ that can be used for ideological study

8. Think of TV News as a ‘genre’ film
What has worked in the past, works today
Treat the TV News program as a ‘cultural text’
It then becomes a cultural artifact

9. Gratuitous Graph Shot Advertising Rules Who won the game?
Sports
Fluff & Human
Interest
Commercials
No News
News Summary
Advertising Rules
Who won the game?
Cat in a Tree
Economic Collapse of the
United States

10. Start to Take Away These Points
The ‘Lament’ argument sees TV news in a decline, moving away from its informational model
It argues that TV News can be a ‘window to reality’
TV news can also be seen as a ‘cultural discourse’ with a distinct communicative power
By acknowledging TV news as a ‘cultural artifact’, meaning is produced through its images.
This meaning leads to deeper latent messages concerning irreverent news.

11. Storytelling Techniques The Especially Remarkable Victims & Tears
Communicative Power

12. Acting-as-he-never-does . . .
The Especially Remarkable
Holding Power
Powerless Elite
Acting-as-he-never-does . . .
The power of‘The’
Triumph

13. Victims & Tears
Mythic
Mimetic
Ironic

14. Norm & Agent
Disruption of normal routines
Accounts & Witnesses
Newsmakers no longer narrators – merely
capturing the story
Overlapping points create emotional charge
Impact
Looking Backwards via remaining evidence, good
victims and images that trigger sympathetic
responses

15. Communicative Power Domination Making your fate Subordination
Subject to fate
Lived reality:
Physical, Psychological, Personal, Social and Economic

16. This World is a Dangerous Place
Irreverent coverage popular wisdom
Someone is always worse off….
Who dares, wins.
Leave it alone
Stray bullet story
English channel swimming report

17. Token YouTube Clips
Stray bullet story
English channel swimming report

18. Questions Do you see irreverent news stories as
important? Can they be seen as cultural
texts?
Why do we allow news to be pleasure-giving
versus informational?

19. And now it’s time for …