The Aesthetics and Politics of Melodrama - Jostein Gripsrud

The distribution and growth of newspapers came with the rise of the working class. With a bit of money to spend on some cheap reading, the tabloid press was the newspaper of choice for these people, especially the lower classes.

These publications were criticised by people of higher classes and politicians alike, claiming that just because they were popular does not make them quality.

There a key features of a tabloid newspaper that give them their success, such as their textual content, their love of scandal, sensationalism and personalisation. Shocking stories will take priority in a tabloid, they will always search for what is entertaining.

According to this reading, Melodrama is basically a way of summing up all that a tabloid is. It is described as a way of making sense of 'every phenomenon which was lost when god returned back to heaven'. Melodramatic text is a way of representing people with certain morals and values and trying to uncover hidden meanings.

This is a very common occurance in tabloid newspapers. They will report on a story, but really/also be reporting on something else underneath it. This will often be an attack on something/someone, using the story as a way of exploiting them.

The tabloids will use a formula to provoke emotion from its reader, whether that be through text, or photography. They will try to make their reader feel hate, love, despair, grief, sorrow, disgust etc, in the same way we would do to create a good play or film for example.

The melodramatic approach is a debatable one, how a tabloid will use a scandal, or rumour and send it out as the truth, can sometimes lead us to question the reliability of tabloids. It can often be looked at as over the top, but in some cases, a scandalous story could be well within public interest.

The reasons for choosing these types of newspapers is quite simple, some people prefer an entertaining story than an in depth political debate. In the modern day, this shouldnt be seen as an indication of someones intellect, as it did back in the late 19th century.