Page 260 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

TALES OF TELLYLAND 249

or had been, associated. Apart from age, biographical details were not
usually provided, an absence which could perhaps be seen as
contributing to their appearance as beings from another world.
There would appear to be a relatively fixed set of nominal labels that
is employed to refer to status in tellyland. Apart from the general one of
‘star’, others are more specific and indicate something of the roles with
which the character has become associated. Sometimes ‘top’ is used, as
in ‘top comic Jimmy Tarbuck’ or ‘top TV chef Keith Floyd’, to indicate
standing.
At one level, it may seem as if this system of labelling tells us very
little about the characters in the stories. At another, the labels may speak
volumes. They are highly condensed points of reference, clues which
are more than sufficient for those already in the know about who is
doing what on television at any given moment. They are constructions
which, in fact, presume readers who are indeed in the know and
interested in the main characters. The character attributes are technically
quite clever, employing puns and alliteration. No doubt written in the
light of knowledge of what a figure has done, or is alleged to have
done, they operate as pointers to the substance of the stories. The fact
that they tend to be deployed in headlines, captions and the early
paragraphs of a story, and that they are often printed in bold, reinforces
the view that they are giving directions to readers about how to view the
main character.
Having set characters in place the stories get down to the main
business, which is to fill us in on what they have done. The actions with
which they deal are of a quite different order from movements around
the world of entertainment. They are actions taken from the ‘private’ lives
of the stars.
I have said that stories of this sort belong to a hybrid genre that
combines elements of fabulous and journalistic writing. They are
sufficiently driven by journalistic imperatives to take an interest in
events that are disruptive, unexpected or unanticipated. Those which
were guaranteed pride of place dealt with just such events. The types of
events which were of particular interest to the tabloids can now be
further specified. They involved actions which were deemed unworthy,
and unbecoming a member of the caste of television stars.

SOME CONCLUSIONS
Having spent some time with these newspapers, I have emerged with
the strong feeling that research on the tabloid press has yet to provide an