NRJ Book Review: Tabloid Journalism in South Africa: True Story!

Abstract

Herman Wasserman, Tabloid Journalism in South Africa: True Story! (Indiana University Press, 2010) 218 pages, $24.95 (paperback).Review by Anthony A. OlorunnisolaHerman Wasserman's Tabloid Journalism in South Africa joins a longstanding discourse about the commercialization of the mass media. Long before the coinage of and tabloidization-describing the takeover of traditional by market journalism-media scholars in the U.S. worried about yellow and then about sensationalism. Concerns about the latter produced a Hutchins Commission charged with addressing the decline of the so-called assumption, and its recommendation of social responsibility handicapped an otherwise free media. The tendency to look at tabloids as purveyors of untoward content for democratic citizens' consumption has continued to bother contemporary media scholars.In Tabloid Journalism in South Africa, Wasserman proposes that the popular notion that tabloids are the bad boys of modern journalism be revisited to broaden scholarly conversation. Academics should not accuse Wasserman of ghettoizing this genre's evolution by treating its inception and unprecedented success as developments with no relevance for journalism in the real world. He sees a lesson in the sociology of journalism for tolerant critics.Wasserman considers it universally noteworthy that tabloids in postapartheid South Africa have granted access to populations previously marginalized by the mainstream media. By so doing, tabloids are giving the mainstream media a run for their money in terms of circulation-about 500,000 copies per day which translates into around 4.7 million regular readers- while showcasing a scenario contrary to the dying spell cast on print journalism in the global North.Starting with the preface through eight chapters of the 218-page text, Wasserman lays a foundation for the book's counter-proposition by suggesting that scholars should be cautious when transporting concepts operationalized in the global North to the study of phenomena in the global South where peculiarities of living may vary. Secondly and consistent with norms of theory- building and theory-testing, evidence that negatively rated tabloids work differently for readers in the global South should be embraced by scholars everywhere.Wasserman points out limitations, which were created partly by his identity as a privileged Afrikaner whose social location was and remains different from that of the majority of South Africans. He clarifies that his objective is neither to apologize for tabloids nor demonize their emergence in South Africa as critics have done. Rather, his goal is to examine tabloids not as problematic but as sociological developments that have redefined journalism. By so doing, it becomes possible to pose different questions. For example, why have South Africans overwhelmingly embraced tabloids? In Chapter 3 Wasserman ponders the controversy over South African tabloids as imitations of American and/or British versions of the genre, a factor that raises questions either about outlandishness or cultural imperialism or cultural hybridism. His treatment of the controversy admits foreign cross-influences. Although he provides evidence that sheds extensive light on global and local influences, Wasserman refrains from categorically resolving the identity question.Wasserman contends with the identity of tabloids in Chapter 4 by broaching their acceptance by mainstream journalists, journalism forums and media critics. Critics' doubts that tabloids should be considered real newspapers led Wasserman to question what tabloids should do to measure up to standards; should they cease being tabloids altogether? Wasserman straddles the controversial divides of professionalism, ethics and value to audiences between mainstream papers and tabloids nicely by recommending paradigms for moving the debate beyond simplistic binaries. …