The Softening of Journalistic Political Communication: A Comprehensive Framework Model of Sensationalism, Soft News, Infotainment, and Tabloidization

Abstract

Despite the scholarly popularity of important developments of political communication, concepts like soft news or infotainment lack conceptual clarity. This article tackles that problem and introduces a multilevel framework model of softening of journalistic political communication, which shows that the 4 most prominent concepts—(a) sensationalism, (b) hard and soft news (HSN), (c) infotainment, and (d) tabloidization, and, additionally, (e) eroding of boundaries of journalism—can be distinguished in a hierarchical model. By softening, we understand a metaconcept representing developments in political journalism that are observed on different levels of investigation, from journalism as a system (macrolevel) down to single media items (microlevel).

The elephant in the newsroom: Current research on journalism and emotion

“…Apart from the spreading of emotions within mainstream “hard” journalism and its resulting softening (Otto, Glogger, & Boukes, ), there have been also attempts to institutionalize and acknowledge openly emotional and personal journalistic discourses while simultaneously repositioning the author and the reader through the development of various successors to the New Journalism of the 1960s, for example, literary journalism, narrative journalism, and journalism of attachment. Literary journalists reject the traditional “contrived” display of objectivity and seek to “capture social complexity in all its richness and nuance, and to celebrate the integrity and cultural authority of the individual reporter” (Pauly, , p. 590).…”

News in an Era of Content Confusion: Effects of News Use Motivations and Context on Native Advertising and Digital News Perceptions

“…Because the aim of this study is to examine whether the contextual effects of a native advertising "news" article influences perceptions of commercialism and journalism, and to maximize external validity, the primary stimuli were based upon existing native advertisements rather than ones that were artificially designed for the experiment. Furthermore, hard and soft news are not dichotomous designations, but, rather distinguished by multiple dimensions including topic, focus, and style (Otto et al, 2017;Reinemann et al, 2011). Thus, the decision was made to use exemplars of native advertising as designed by the New York Times' T Brand Studio.…”

News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect

“…Being a multifaceted concept (Otto, Glogger, & Boukes, 2016), Patterson (2000) identified soft news relative to hard news by (a) the topics it covers (i.e., without versus with public policy component), (b) the perspective it takes (i.e., private versus public), but also (c) the style with which it is covered (i.e., sensational versus informal). Hence, "the difference between soft and hard news is one of degree rather than kind" (Baum, 2003, p. 6).…”