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In:Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse
Edited by Minna Palander-Collin, Maura Ratia and Irma Taavitsainen
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 6] 2017
► pp. 119–136

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Chapter 7
British popular newspaper traditions

From the nineteenth century to the first tabloid

Published online: 29 August 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.6.07con
Abstract
This article traces continuities within the development of British popular newspaper traditions from the Sunday weekly publications of the early and mid-nineteenth century, through the rise of the mass daily press and culminating in the launch of the first British newspaper that could be accurately termed “tabloid” in both format and style: the Daily Mirror. It is claimed that an explicit appeal in these newspapers to readers who see themselves as outside a privileged elite and a corresponding critical approach to elites, both political and social, has always formed part of this commercially successful manifestation of popular culture.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Popular experimentation
  • 3.Victorian Sunday newspapers
    • 3.1Generic patterns
    • 3.2Melodramatic features
  • 4.Further commercialisation of the British newspaper market
  • 5.The Daily Mirror : Rise and fall of a newspaper experiment
  • 6.Tabloid re-launch: New paper on the streets
  • 7.Rewarding reader contributions
  • 8.A new style of letters to the newspaper
  • 9.Creating epistolary dialogues
  • 10.Conclusion
  • References
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