Tabloidization of court proceedings’ reports on gossip websites

Abstract

The article is an attempt to analyze the phenomenon of tabloidization of court proceedings’ reports on gossip websites — websites whose constitutive features are, among others, the scandalization and dramatization of disseminated messages. Using media reports about the accusations and court case pending against Kevin Spacey, which were made available on TMZ.com (United States) and Pudelek.pl (Poland), an attempt was made to determine how media workers present crimes related to their judicial conduct and how such representations can affect the perception of justice by recipients. The base of considerations was the social constructivism and framing theory. As a result of research, it was discovered that: (1) gossip websites’ editorial teams use the interpretative frame of the cruel world to cover criminal matters, including the narratives of an absolutely evil attacker and innocent victim, which enables the creation of a dramatic, and at the same time extremely attractive to recipients, opposition; (2) crime-related texts on gossip websites are closer to commentaries and assessments of the presented crimes than to actual reporting on court proceedings; (3) typical editorial measures used to build tension in the gossip materials about court proceedings are to report only those stages of the proceedings that can be provided with emotional comments, constant recalling of negative information about the crime that arose before the trial, the use of flashy and unambiguously negative headlines, and reminders of the highest penalty for the described act; (4) geographical proximity of the described events or the represented media market do not affect the manner in which gossip websites cover court proceedings.