Tabloids: A Representation of what we consider News Essay example -- E

Tabloids: A Representation of what we consider News Why is it that every time we see that someone is keeping a journal we have that gut urge to sneak into their bag and read all of their innermost thoughts? We all experience it. Although most want to deny it, there is no escaping that part of us that wants to know all we can about other people. Luckily, there is a medium that lets us do just that. Tabloids make the lives of others, especially celebrities, an open book for all to read and scrutinize. Not only do tabloids offer the lives of others on a silver platter, but they also let readers get sensational satisfaction, meaning they have the ability to be actively involved in articles with all their senses. Emotional stories, graphic images, terrifying fantastic epics, the lives of others, are all presented to readers in one convenient medium; the tabloid. The tabloid is not a new medium whatsoever, in fact the model for the modern tabloid dates all the way back to folklore. Before the printing press was introduced into society, oral storytelling was the only way society satisfied their craving for scandal and thrilling stories. People spoke about their neighbor’s business and far-fetched happenings, and the only way to pass those stories on was to tell the story. Just like a game of telephone that we have all played in grade school, stories ended up changing and being misconstrued to later form urban legends that we still hear about today. It wasn’t until Johann Gutenberg introduced the printing press in the 1450’s that the ancestors of tabloids truly emerged in a form that specifically helped to shape the modern tabloid we see today. America and Europe experienced a monumental transformation because... ...bloid Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards. Maryland: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. Sloan, Bill. â€Å"I Watched a Wild Hog Eat My Baby!† A Colorful History of Tabloids and Their Cultural Impact. New York: Prometheus Books. 2001 Lumby, Catherine and Elspeth Probyn. RemoteControl: New Media, New Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Cuozzo, Steven. Its Alive! How America’s Oldest Newspaper Cheated Death and Why is Matters. New York: Random House, 1996. Bird, Elizabeth S. For Enquiring Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids. Tennesse: Undecided of Tennessee, 1992. Yalof, David and Kenneth Dautrich. The First Amendment and the Media in the Court of Public Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Barkin, Steve M. The Journalist Storyteller: A Interdisciplinary Perspective. American Journalism Vol 1. 1984.