Page 262 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

TALES OF TELLYLAND 251

confines itself to promoting stars or celebrating their good deeds. There
would seem to be a greater enthusiasm for items of content of the sort
that has been discussed, and in addition, for candid photographs where
stars are caught off their guard, often in far from flattering situations.
Note should also be taken of the fact that among TV stars, just as much
as among the royal family, there is a fair amount of hostility to the
tabloid press’s use of this candid photography. While to a certain degree
the stories told valorize the main characters, it is more often the case that
they do the reverse.
The material is such that it could be seen as performing a kind of
cultural police work. Implied throughout all these stories is a twofold
perspective on the proper conduct of stars. One aspect of this
perspective is that stars, perhaps because of their status and associated
lifestyles, are morally fairly wayward beings. Certainly there is an
‘ordinary world’ morality—or rather, a morality which is proposed as of
the ‘ordinary world’—by which only a few of these stars live their off-
screen lives. The stories are not particularly interested in the moral codes
by which stars do live their lives, but rather in demonstrating how far
removed they are from the moral codes of the everyday world. The
other aspect of this perspective is that stardom carries with it certain
responsibilities as well as privileges. It is recognized that stars can lead
sometimes spectacularly opulent lives. This opulence is accepted if, in
return, the stars do what the stories require of them, namely that they
accept the responsibilities of paragons, not just of their crafts, but also
of moral virtues. What the papers’ efforts of revelation focus on are
those instances where stars have stealthily turned their backs on these
wider responsibilities. So long as stars behave themselves, acknowledge
their responsibilities and act in accordance with the mythology of
stardom, their ‘private lives’ are comparatively safe.
The tabloid’s revelations are not confined to stars of television alone.
Any representatives of established public organizations are fair game if
actions in what has been regarded as the private sphere contradict or
contravene what the papers regard as proper moral conduct. They are
even fairer game if those representatives have, either by their position
or by their own pronouncements, lent their support to what the papers
would regard as proper moral conduct. In hunting down their game, the
tabloids have in effect contributed to a blurring of the distinctions that
could once have been drawn between the public and private spheres.
Certainly these papers are not willing to accept in all cases that the
private is off limits. This raises difficult issues, only some of which
have been publicly discussed. The tabloid’s ‘invasions of privacy’ tend