As I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things I decided that it was past time that I pick up one of the many British tabloids. Seeing as I wanted to spend as little money as possible I decided to pick up a packaged magazine that came with two different tabloids in it called heat and Closer.
I first looked at heat and at first glance I noticed how much attention these tabloids give to not only their own celebrities but to our own celebrities as well, especially since many of our celebrities intersect each other such as David and Victoria Beckham who had a large story in the first few pages of both of the magazines. There was even a section within heat called "GOSSIP with an American accent" that solely focused on major headlines from celebrities in the states.
Closer on the other hand seemed to just focus mainly on British figures and many of its stories seemed to be based on speculation and very little, if any, fact. The language that it is written in just gives the effect that there are not too many reliable sources within its content.
heat had a rather large headline about Victoria Beckham with five smaller headlines surrounding it and Closer had just a a cluster of smaller headlines, which shows a difference in the style of the tabloids here as the majority of tabloids in the U.S. usually have one large headline instead of a few smaller ones.
There also seems to be a disconnect between the two tabloids as well, as I suspect there is between all of the British gossip magazines. In heat there was a story about Victoria Beckham being too stressed out and not making time for David, while Closer delivered a different story on the two saying it is David who is too busy. While this is only a small difference in the story lines between the two publications it still shows how the goal of the magazines is to sell headlines and not content. They want to sell as many magazines as possible with attractive content while back in the states the goal is to not only sell but to have coherent information across the board.
It is interesting to see how the celebrity culture is so different here than it is back home because I feel like here they can say just about anything on their cover or within the pages of their magazine and people would believe what they are saying without much background.
I disagree that celebrity culture is so different here than back at home. I find that gossip/tabloid magazines back home also have ridiculous statements on their covers and within the pages as well. Maybe not "People," but there are plenty of other American tabloids that are just filled with baseless information purely there to make money. I think it says more about the global celebrity-obessed society that we live in today.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Nicole. I love celebrity news and have updated myself everyday since being here on what is going on back in Hollywood; however I try to do this through credible sources. Although we do have a few magazines in the US making outlandish lies about celebrities, I really do not think they appeal to most of people looking strictly for celebrity entertainment. I myself have not been interested in buying those tabloids here, or in the United States, because I think they are ridiculous and just plain unethical to produce.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I completely agree that the celebrity culture is very different here than in the United States from what I have seen and experienced.