THE MEDIA AND SENSATIONALISM

Tiffen states “the Function of the press in society is to inform, but its role is to make money” (1994: 61). The increased focus on profitability in media firms has reconfigured the manner in which news stories are presented and what constitutes as “news” itself. For instance, in reference to the current media environment, Park states “news remains news only until it has reached the persons for whom it has news interest” (1999: 2). The concept of “newsworthiness” hence hinders journalistic ideals of “objectivity” and constructs sensationalized stories which focus on the “unordinary within the ordinary” (Street, 2001: 22). Furthermore, the media race for advertising funds has resulted in a focus on “light entertainment” as “advertisers tend to avoid programmes with serious complexities […] that interfere with the buying mood” (Herman and Chomsky, 1999: 171).

Soft news -- including celebrity, gossip, scandal and human interest stories – thus jumped from 15 percent to 43 percent in the period between 1977 and 1997 (Koch, 1998: 5). While this essay was unable to obtain data that is more current, percentages of soft news in dailies and weeklies are probably higher. For instance, the esteemed New York Times was one of the first news outlets to report on the Paris Hilton sex scandal and “that an anonymous source was offering samples to media outlets” (Cashmore, 2006: 144). In conjunction, political stories are often reconfigured to serve the “amusement society” by the blurring of differences between political leaders and celebrities and the dramatization of political events (Cashmore, 223: 2006). It is thus questionable to explore the practice of blogging in relation to “traditional conceptions of journalism” which scarcely exist.



For this purpose, this essay shall focus on the practice of blogging in relation to celebrity news.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

William Davie states that news and television programming often gain mass audiences by “beckoning them to enter the public sphere through the door of celebrity glamour” (2001: 355). As a majority of broadcast channels are global in nature, entertainment news provides a “universal cultural currency” allowing these networks to cash in on the popularity of Hollywood culture (Brooks, 2004: 21a). In the 1980s and 1990s, for instance, global broadcasting of award shows surrounded American movie stars and musicians with “glamour” and “excitement” hence simultaneously establishing them as cultural icons as well as drawing in high ratings (Lasch, 1980: 21). Cashmore (2006: 6) states the common man has a perennial preoccupation with fame and glory thus this coupling of the spectacle of celebrity with the pervasiveness of television induced the “global insatiability of the public’s desire for [entertainment] information” (Miller and Shepherd, 2004).

As aforementioned, the media follow a philosophy of drawing on the “unordinary within the ordinary.” Saturation coverage of the glamorized events of Hollywood hence paved the way for “unordinary” paparazzi coverage which thrives on celebrity scandal and gossip (Cashmore, 2006: 10). Mass media’s focus on celebrity scandal, however, can also be interpreted as a response to the changes in contemporary societies that is growing nihilism and the scarcity of attention.

PAPARAZZI, GOSSIP AND SCANDAL

Geert Lovink contends that the "nihilistic moment" is not how blogging has resulted in disenchantment with traditional media but the general existence in society of a declining “Belief in the message” (Lovink, 2006). “Nihilism” hence does not emerge out of the practice of blogging but is the cultural context from which it emerged. The nihilistic moment also significantly altered and increased media coverage of celebrity culture.

As the mass media is no longer considered objective, postmodern society thus undergoes a “pursuit of truth” in which it demands “raw, unedited” media (Miller and Shepherd, 2004). Cashmore hence states in the current media environment “seeing is knowing, not just believing” (2006: 23). While audiences once trusted journalists to relay the “objective” truth, they now stipulated to “see” the unmediated truth hence resulting in a rehabilitation of voyeurism and the rise of paparazzi. Clay Calvert defines this mediated voyeurism as “the consumption of revealing images of and information about others' apparently unrevealed and unguarded lives” (2000).


Media coverage of Princess Diana is a case and point. The demand for “raw” truths involved the relentless pursuit of paparazzi photos that detailed her every move. These often obscene photographs and videos relayed the “unmediated, private lives” of such public figures hence unmasking public relations spin (Cashmore, 2006: 43). The nihilistic tendencies of society thus resulted in the destabilization of the public and private in news coverage as to ‘know’ a public figure is to ‘see’ their public and private life. This aspect is also integral to the understanding of the triumph of visual mediums such as photography and videos in entertainment news over text.

Another aspect of entertainment coverage that necessitates grounding is Cashmore’s contention that it is in the form of “celebrity chatter” (2006: 87). With the absence of a traditional sense of community in urban culture, celebrity gossip functions as “a powerfully healthy social elixir” (Brooks, 2004:21a). The world of celebrity has thus become the urban common culture where its discussion not only facilitates social interaction but also that between media and audiences. Lovink’s statement that “through blogging, news is being transformed from a lecture to a conversation” is an interesting parallel, as entertainment news coverage is already defined as conversation (2006).

THE SCARCITY OF ATTENTION

Richard Lanham states that in the new information economy, “attention is the commodity in short supply” (2006: xi). This theory illustrates the increased emphasis on entertainment news as it is “something that occupies us agreeably, diverting out minds from matters that might prompt introspection, analysis or reflection” (Cashmore, 2006: 8). It can also, however, endorse the structure of media coverage. As aforementioned, entertainment news is often visual, and the mix of paparazzi shots alongside those that celebrify the rich and famous, allows the audience to form their own conclusions without serious introspection or consequence.

THE BLOGGING PLATFORM

Blogging is broadly defined as “the reverse-chronological posting of individually authored entries that include the capacity to provide hypertext links and often allow comment based responses from readers” (Bruns and Jacobs, 2006: 3). Gossip blogs follow this format with content that centers on entertainment news and are characterized by tones of writing that are “personal, sarcastic and often incredibly biased” (Mulhall, 2007: 10).

Given the similarity in tone to traditional entertainment coverage, it hence can be assumed that gossip blogs are playing a significant factor in the decline in magazine readership. In conjunction, magazine sales of the period ending March 2007 were reportedly down by 5.5 percent (Jackson, 2007). Langdon hence states “technologies are not merely aids to human activities, but also powerful forces acting to reshape that activity and its meaning” (cited in Flew, 2005: 28). Therefore as the blogosphere emerged out of a celebrity-centric society, the blogging platform enables gossip blogs to better serve one of the defining activities of its time that is the consumption of celebrity culture (Miller and Shepherd, 2004). This essay shall now explore how gossip blogs challenge traditional forms of entertainment news.

BLOGS AND PARASOCIAL INTERACTION

Primarily, gossip blogs have redefined the notion of parasocial interaction. Cashmore defines this type of interaction as “intimacy at a distance,” where even the ostensibly uninterested are aware of celebrities’ personal information despite the improbability of personal interaction (2006: 80). She questions this sense of “knowing” celebrities by asking “what do we really know about them?” (Cashmore, 2006: 80). Gossip blogs are an exemplary rebuttal with the definite extension of what blog readers “know” about celebrities. Sites like “Gawker Stalker”, for instance, map the last seen location of celebrities.

Others like “Go Fug Yourself” detail every bad wardrobe decision.

The more scathing such as “A Socialite’s Life” detail sightings, drunken nights, weight gains and more at hourly updates.



This extension is facilitated by the very platform of blogging. Blog sites benefit from the emerging power of “web communities” which are “defined through voluntary, temporary and tactical affiliations” (Jenkins, 2004: 35). Therefore although blogs are often run by a solitary blogger, bulletin boards and comment boxes are often established to allow readers to send in their own pictures of celebrities and the latest from the rumor mill. Perez Hilton, for instance, regularly posts videos of concerts taken by readers/contributors as well as celebrity sightings. Gossip blogs hence illustrate the power of Pierre Levy’s notion of ‘collective intelligence’ that is the capabilities of large-scale information gathering and processing activities of web communities (Jenkins, 2004: 35). Given the popularity of celebrity culture, the web community of gossip blogs is also significantly large with 7 gossip blogs occupying Technorati’s “Top 100” (Technorati).


Furthermore, advances of technologies such as the “ability to publish words and pictures even via cell phones” have enabled blogs to “report more immediately than traditional media” (Bruns and Jacobs, 2006: 3). While the benchmark for political reporting might be “accuracy, not speed,” accuracy is rarely an integral part of entertainment news (Regan, 1998: 1). The immediacy of gossip blogs hence also contributes to the extension of “knowing.” If entertainment news is hence defined by “seeing is knowing,” with gossip blogs readers “know” more and also “know” faster.

BLOGS, VOYEURISM AND SURVEILLANCE

Implicit in the redefinition of parasocial interaction is an increase in mediated voyeurism. Various academics have discussed the loss of privacy in cyberspace as the usage of social networking sites and personal blogs themselves have resulted in the “relinquishment of control over increasing amounts of personal information” (Calvert, 2000). Calvert contends that this constructs an increased expectation of information in return (2000). For instance, consider Robin Abcarian’s statement that gossip blogs have taken “stargazers from a weekly or nightly television fix to an hour by hour, minute by minute, entertain yourself at the workplace enterprise” (2006). In conjunction, Greg Noble notes the glass walled and cubicle offices of contemporary firms has resulted in greater surveillance and relinquishment of personal control at the workplace (2003: 98). Gossip blogs with their digital format and ease of access thus provide an appropriate space for increased celebrity voyeurism by postmodern beings subject to their own surveillance. In addition, gossip blogs are part of the “web’s prevailing gift culture” (Jenkins, 2004: 39). When comparing the extent of coverage of celebrity culture, perhaps, only entertainment weeklies and cable channels such as E! match information-rich gossip blogs. Both media outlets generally require payment; hence the gift economy of gossip blogs enables mediated voyeurism without the cost.