Article by Michael Bo Karlsson, of Karlstad University, explores the tabloidization effect in Sweden and in United Kingdom. The study is based on a week-sized sample of six news sites during 2002, 2007 and 2012 and it covers news sites within tabloid, quality morning, and local/regional varieties.

Results show that there is an overall tabloidization effect regardless of country or publishing tradition. The author notes that tabloidization can be more precisely described as a shift from political to more lifestyle journalism. There is also more news about sports.

The study shows that tabloidization effect is stronger in tabloids and in Sweden compared to the UK.

The article “Goodbye politics, hello lifestyle: Changing news topics in tabloid, quality and local newspaper websites in the U.K. and Sweden from 2002 to 2012” was published by Observatorio. It is available here.

Picture: tabloid by Anthony Easton, licence: CC BY 2.0