Sensationalism

Sensationalism is a generally pejorative journalistic term, which denounces the tendency to produce sensation, emotion or impression. It is applicable to all media (especially the written press, radio, digital media, or television). Other terms are also used: tabloid (allusive to the sheet format that these publications usually have), sensationalism or yellow press, red note (in the case of news about crimes and deaths), and heart journalism or "pink press& #3. 4; (for matters of private life of celebrities).

Sensationalist media are characterized by disseminating controversial, shocking or highly attention-grabbing information, often of little consequence but arousing great interest among the public, to the detriment of other issues or objectively more important aspects of such matters. It is common for the sensationalist media to repeatedly spread dubious, false, or harmful information. The objectives of sensationalism are spurious for journalism: obtaining at all costs a greater impact (audience or circulation), and therefore greater economic benefits, or the manipulation of public opinion (with a certain purpose: business, political, social or ideological).

Media not considered sensationalists also present this tendency to some extent, as part of what is known as media bias. There is a well-known saying in journalism that reflects the philosophy of sensationalism: "never let reality spoil good news for you".

In terms of form, the tabloid design usually uses sans-serif capital letters, black backgrounds, and strong colors such as red. Also noteworthy is the abundance of images to the detriment of the text, often silhouetted or forming montages.

This form of popular press began with the arrival of the New York Sun (1883) and New York Herald (1885) newspapers, which, in addition to lowering their prices, published articles of human interest such as they were like events in cities, police cases, entertainment news and shows. Later in Argentina the newspaper Crítica (1913) was born, which is attributed to Natalio Felíx Botana, this had the same characteristics as the previous ones.

In Europe, the German Bild, from the Axel Springer group, and the British Daily Star (Express Newspaper) and Daily Mirror stand out.

Sensationalism can also occur in other areas, such as music. Musical sensationalism takes the form of advertising campaigns carried out by record companies to make a group or artist fashionable, exploit their image and achieve the highest possible sales (these groups or artists are usually classified as "commercials& #34; -commercial music-).