What is the yellow press? So, where did the expression “yellow press” come from?

Gossip, sex. Information in such publications does not act as spiritual and practical knowledge, but as an entertainment product. Thus, the founders will not face any other tasks other than obtaining surplus value.

Almanac of the Faculty of Journalism of Voronezh state university and the Academy of Sciences of the regional press “Accents. New in mass communication", issue 5-6 (68-69), 2007. V. Khorolsky. Domestic and foreign scientists on global problems of mass media communication

origin of name

There are several versions about the origin of this concept. According to one of them, the name came from the color of newspapers printed on cheap paper. According to another version, the origin is associated with the litigation between the newspapers “New York World” by Pulitzer and “New York Journal” by Hearst over the comic strip “Yellow Kid” in 1896. This Baby owed his color to the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, which for the first time showed the West a wave of jingoistic hysteria in Japanese society (yellow peril), which he parodied - yellow babies had Asian features. They were depicted in an unkempt manner and also exhibited impudent behavior.

History of development

With the emergence of mass culture, such publications as The New York Sun, The New York Herald and The New York Tribune appeared. Even then, sexual themes, motives for death, coverage of scandals, crimes, and violence dominated the pages of “yellow” newspapers.

These new opportunities were used by J. Pulitzer (The New York World) and W. Hearst (The San Francisco Examiner, New York Journal, etc.) to increase the level of popularity of the publication. The circulation of their newspapers was successfully sold out not only thanks to the prompt reporting of dramatic facts, but also to the practice of creating so-called “human-interest stories” - newspaper materials that “... are more focused on awakening emotions (compassion, pathos, humor, anxiety, curiosity), than to cover reliable events.” Pulitzer was the first, followed by Hearst, to use a special type of sensational reporting, the main method of which was shifting the focus of attention from the fact itself to its presentation.

In Russia

Typological features and methods used

One of the characteristics of the yellow press phenomenon is the shocking coverage of taboo topics.
Sensationalism is an equally important feature of the “yellow” press. (Fig. 1)
thematic eclecticism. One of the main elements of the “yellow” press system is the dominance of the visual component over the textual one.

The practice includes misinformation headlines of the following subtypes:

Extratextual headings. These subheadings are not related to the specific text of the material, but to an extra-textual situation. This situation is more interesting than the content of the text itself. (Fig. 2)
Headings representing the abstract of the publication (one of several). Tabloid headlines differ from meaningful headlines from quality press in that they do not reveal the full essence of the story. They attract attention with some detail. (Fig. 2)
A headline that is a direct distortion, manipulation of the facts contained in the text. (Fig. 2)

Depending on the type-forming characteristics and features that determine the structure of the publication, they are distinguished

“Intermediate” publications, which gravitate towards quality newspapers, but have some basic features of “yellow” ones.
Tabloid publications. They contain basically all the features of the “yellow” publications. They are more banal in content when compared with high-quality ones, and more “mercantile” than “intermediate”.
Actually “yellow”. Newspapers that have all the basic type-forming features noted above. They are distinguished by a pronounced pathos of hedonism, sensationalism and outright vulgarity (Fig. 1, Fig. 2).
Semi-pornographic and pornographic publications, which are characterized by the preservation of all the existing features of the previous types, with a bias towards coverage of deviant sexual relations.

Notes

Links

The phenomenon of the “yellow press”. Evgeny Sazonov, scientific and cultural magazine RELGA, No. 7 05/23/2005

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Synonyms:

See what “Yellow Press” is in other dictionaries:

From English: Yellow press. The expression was born in the USA. In 1895, a series of funny drawings appeared in the New York newspaper “The World,” among the characters of which was a certain boy who commented on what was happening. This child had... Dictionary of popular words and expressions

- “YELLOW PRESS”, periodicals that publish scandalous messages in pursuit of sensation. The term appeared in con. 19th century in USA … encyclopedic Dictionary

Low-quality periodicals that publish scandalous messages and misinformation in pursuit of sensation. The term appeared in con. 19th century in USA … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Exist., number of synonyms: 1 seal (57) Dictionary of synonyms ASIS. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

What is the yellow press?

Yellow press (tabloid, tabloid) is a colloquial term meaning commercial media, affordable and specializing in rumors, sensations (often imaginary), scandals, gossip, sex. Information in such publications does not act as spiritual and practical knowledge, but as an entertainment product. Thus, the founders will not face any other tasks other than obtaining surplus value.
In Russia, before perestroika, all printed publications were subject to censorship and Chief Editor could pay with his position if he lets incorrect material into the room. During Perestroika, glasnost (later freedom of speech) was announced, after which some newspapers began to print articles based on fiction in order to increase the sales of circulation and use the methods of the yellow press.
The first representatives of the trend appeared in the 90s of the 20th century, the tabloid Express Newspaper, and the weekly Megapolis Express. Nowadays, a number of publications are classified as typical yellow press, in particular, the newspapers Your Day (formerly Life), Komsomolskaya Pravda, etc. In 2009, the Public Collegium for Complaints against the Press, which included famous journalists Eduard Sagalayev, Nikolai Svanidze, Daniil Dondurei , Alexey Kara-Murza, Mikhail Nenashev, Georgy Satarov, recognized as yellow the newspaper "Izvestia", which, according to members of the board, has now moved from a respectable, high-quality publication to the category of tabloid newspapers.
One of the characteristics of the yellow press phenomenon is the shocking coverage of taboo topics.
Sensationalism is an equally important feature of the yellow press. One of the main elements of the yellow press system is the dominance of the visual component over the textual one.
The practice includes misinformation headlines of the following subtypes:

Extratextual headings. These subheadings are not related to the specific text of the material, but to an extra-textual situation. This situation is more interesting than the content of the text itself.
Headings representing the abstract of the publication (one of several). Tabloid headlines differ from meaningful headlines from quality press in that they do not reveal the full essence of the story. They attract attention with some detail.
A headline that is a direct distortion, manipulation of the facts contained in the text.
Depending on the type-forming characteristics and features that determine the structure of the publication, they are distinguished

Intermediate publications, which gravitate towards quality newspapers, but have some of the basic features of yellow ones.
Tabloid publications. They contain basically all the features of the yellow editions. They are more banal in content when compared with high-quality ones, and more mercantile than the intermediate ones.
Actually yellow. Newspapers that have all the basic type-forming features noted above. They are distinguished by a pronounced pathos of hedonism, sensationalism and outright vulgarity.
Semi-pornographic and pornographic publications, which are characterized by the preservation of all the existing features of the previous types, with a bias towards coverage of deviant sexual relations.
Newspapers Your Day, Life
gossip newspapers
As they say, extremely comprehensive answers :-). Where did the term “yellow” come from? I heard a version that once two American newspapers were suing. They published the same adventures (probably unlikely) of some boy in a yellow shirt. Naturally, they sued for priority of publication.
Probably both newspapers were tabloids, and here they were also called yellow.
The one that is recognized as such.
Yellow press is a designation for printed press publications that are affordable and specialize in rumors, sensations (often imaginary), scandals, gossip, shocking coverage of taboo topics.1 Information in such publications does not act as spiritual and practical knowledge, but as an entertainment product . The founders of such publications do not set themselves any other goals than obtaining surplus value. Widespread hedonism has turned the yellow media, and their influence everywhere, into a supplier of infotainment (and its component, political entertainment). And hence the numerous deviations from the canon of truth, seriousness, and responsibility in the world’s mass media. Infotainment is pleasant information or informational pleasure.
As is known, in the era of the yellow 1890s, in a dispute with Victorian hypocrisy in England, a metaphor was born, denoting a) the morbidity of the worldview of decadents and aesthetes, b) the extravagance of the style of journalism of the impressionists, writers like Oscar Wilde, c) the hedonistic dandy attitudes of symbolists and modernists, professing anti-bourgeois values, d) the thirst for novelty that permeates the era of the end of the century of the end of the world (O. Wilde). IN modern science about the media, there are also other shades of meaning of this word: a) belonging to a certain type of journalistic creativity, b) a specific discourse focused on entertainment, c) a special style that contributes to the market attractiveness of an information product. As for foreign journalistic practice, in the United States the yellow press was and is more often understood as sensational, unreliable, obscene or vulgar messages, which often combine loud headlines and illustrations (R. Terry-Elmore), and yellow journalism is the processing of news in a sensationalistic manner. manner (R. Izard, H. Kultberson, D. Lambert) 3non-authoritative source?.
Chinese newspapers :)

“Yellow press” refers to publications that specialize in all kinds of sensations, scandals and revelations. At the same time, the central place in the value system of such media is occupied not by the reliability of the information provided, but by a flashy headline.

AiF.ru talks about the history of the origin of the term “yellow press”.

"Yellow Baby" Photo: Public Domain

Comic book hero

According to one version, the term “yellow press” appeared as a result competition, in which they agreed New York World editor-in-chief Joseph Pulitzer And New York Journal editor-in-chief William Randolph Hearst.

In 1896, Pulitzer decided to publish a comic strip about a poor kid from the New York slums in his newspaper. The author of "The Yellow Baby" was graphic artist Richard Felton Outcott. To liven up the black and white pages of the publication, he decided to color the character's clothes yellow. Readers clearly liked this idea, since the newspaper's circulation immediately increased significantly. Envying his competitor's success, Hirst lured Outcott to his publication, promising more money. As a result, a real media war began between the two publications: the two editors-in-chief used all print opportunities to present the competitor’s newspaper in a bad light. Everyone in the Big Apple knew about this confrontation. And one day New York Press editor Erwin Wardman in one of his articles he called competing publications the “yellow press,” recalling to Pulitzer and Hirst the comic book hero who had quarreled between them.

Low grade paper

According to another version, the yellow press got its name because of the low quality of paper on which the first cheap tabloid newspapers (“penny press”) were printed in the United States in the 1830s. The pages of such publications turned yellow as quickly as the sensations they told were exposed.

The theory of modern journalism under " yellow press» understands cheaper printed publications that specialize mainly in covering sensations, scandals, and rumors. These are newspapers that do not hesitate to pay close attention to personal life with the help of voice recorders and cameras. famous people, including its not so pleasant side.

The latter circumstance often neutralizes in the perception of readers the difference between the ordinary, “yellow” and “tabloid” press. In the struggle for circulation and money, the “tabloid” press does not disdain even beautiful lies and gross distortion of facts. The emphasis is not on the integrity of the text, but on emphasizing shocking details, even individual words. The “yellow press” does not do this kind of thing. But in most cases, only a specialist can catch the difference, which the average reader, as a rule, is not.

Two New Yorkers fought

There is no exact data about who exactly and why introduced the stable expression “” into use. But there are two main versions. The first of them is economic. It lies in the fact that, having decided to sell newspapers that were radically different not only in content and price, but also in shape and color, the publishers chose cheaper yellow paper for them. The second option looks more scandalous and is called “Yellow Baby”. This was the name of a parody comic strip published in the United States in 1896, dedicated to the Sino-Japanese War.

The dirty and unkempt yellow kid depicted in the comic, translated into English as Yellow Kid, not only very much resembled him, but was also similar in name. After all, “Japanese” and “yellow” sound the same - Yellow. The comic became the subject of public disagreement between two North American media moguls and publishers of major newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer, head of the New York World, and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal American entered into a dispute over the "Yellow Baby".

Sex on the front page

By the way, it is Joseph Pulitzer, much better known as the founder of the prize of the same name, and William Hearst who are considered the “parents” of newspapers labeled “yellow press.” The publications they owned were the first in the world to focus on publishing materials whose headlines, photos and texts tried to awaken extraordinary emotions in people. Including, for example, curiosity, humor, envy, anger, anxiety, fear, hatred. Thus, this encouraged people to follow the continuation of the story and new similar materials, pay money for fascinating reading and increase circulation.

Thanks to Pulitzer and Hearst, newspapers began to cover in detail, with numerous illustrations, not only some truly important events for the world, country and society. Topics of sex, crime, death, sensational and mysterious words, events and phenomena that were previously closed to readers appeared on the front pages of publications. And for journalists it has become quite common and normal to add a fair amount of shocking, cynicism and vulgarity to published materials.

"Yellow" Russia

Newspapers and magazines that could have aroused the approval of the Americans Pulitzer and Hearst appeared in the USSR and Russia only after the announcement of a course towards so-called glasnost, freedom of speech and the elimination of censorship. More precisely, their publication and distribution have only resumed. After all, the first openly “yellow” newspaper existed in Russia even before 1917. It bore a name that fully corresponded to both the form of such a press and its content and price - “Kopeyka”.

As for modern times, Evgeniy Dodolev’s sensational story for the then socialist country served as a kind of signal for the beginning of the information “yellowness” of domestic journalism. In 1986, he published two texts in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper dedicated to the capital’s prostitutes: “Night Hunters” and “White Dance.” And after some time, truly “yellow” publications - “Express Newspaper”, “Top Secret”, “Life”, “AIDS-Info”, “Megapolis-Express” - began to lie freely on the newspaper counters and display cases of Soyuzpechat. and many others.

Newspaper duck in the yellow press

What does the yellow press print?

New day (or new day) -

Every now and then newspaper ducks...

Yellow press

Tabloid press refers to tabloid, vulgar, low-quality media outlets that are greedy for cheap sensations. But why are this kind of newspapers and magazines called the yellow press? Why not blue or, for example, green?

So, where did the expression “yellow press” come from?

As you know, no one likes the “yellow press”, but many people read it. The irresistible desire to look into a neighbor’s keyhole - the largest American newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, who is directly related to the emergence of the term “yellow press,” knew very well about this property of human nature. It all started with the fact that in 1896, the New York World newspaper, headed by J. Pulitzer, for the first time in history published a comic strip, authored by graphic artist Richard Felton Outcott. The hero of frivolous stories in pictures, a poor boy from the New York slums, was dressed in burlap, which Outcott came up with to paint yellow - to enliven the dull black and white pages with a bright spot. The spot turned out to be incredibly attractive: the newspaper's circulation soared to a million copies. Envying the success of his competitor, the owner of the New York Journal newspaper, William Randolph Hearst, lured the comic book author and his yellow guy to his publication, promising the cartoonist huge fees. Stung, Pulitzer was forced to find a replacement for Outcott, and another artist began churning out stories about the poor man for the New York World. A lengthy dispute ensued between the two newspapers, each of the publishers trying to defend the right of primacy to the tomboy in yellow and to the publication of comics in general. But the yellow spot no longer gave anyone peace. Comics with a guy in a yellow outfit were nevertheless published by both publications, also competing in the prompt presentation of all kinds of sensations. One outside observer, journalist Erwin Wardman of the New York Press, dubbed the competing newspapers the “yellow press” in his article.

The phenomenon of the “yellow press”

The term “yellow press” appeared, as is known, in the USA, when the largest newspaper business monopolists J. Pulitzer and W.R. were fighting for the market. Hurst. This expression was given life by the comic book about the “Yellow Kid”, a trial around which arose between Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Journal. In 1896, E. Wardman, editor of the New York Press, called competing publications "yellow." Thus, the term “tabloid press” originally meant periodicals that printed comics with a specific hero. Later he acquired another, more deep meaning, which has survived to this day. Many researchers count the history of the “yellow” press from the end of the 19th century, forgetting that earlier there were newspapers that contributed to the formation of this type of press.

After 1830, with increasing urbanization, journalism began to pay attention to the demands of immigrants and the working class. The “penny press” appeared, the predecessor of the “yellow press”. The publishing business has increasingly become shaped like a commercial enterprise. The formation of “cent” newspapers has become a significant sociocultural phenomenon associated with the processes of the emergence of mass culture. First successful projects The publications “The New York Sun”, “The New York Herald” and “The New York Tribune” began to follow the “yellow” theme. Sexual themes, motives for death, coverage of scandals, crimes, and violence already took a dominant place on the pages of “yellow” newspapers. These new trends were most fully embodied in their publications by J. Pulitzer (The New York World) and W. Hearst (The San Francisco Examiner, New York Journal, etc.). Their newspapers quickly achieved wide popularity not only thanks to the prompt reporting of dramatic facts, but also the practice of creating “human-interest stories” - newspaper materials that “... are more focused on awakening emotions (compassion, pathos, humor, anxiety, curiosity), than to cover reliable events.” Pulitzer (and later Hearst) introduced a special type of sensational reporting, the main method of which was to shift the focus of attention from the fact itself to its presentation. This coincided with the development of the paradigm of mass fiction, in particular adventure and detective novels, which proclaimed entertainment as the main genre dominant.

To attract the attention of readers, the Pulitzer and Hearst newspapers appeared with large headlines that deliberately misled the reader and color illustrations. For easier understanding by the mass audience, the publication used a large number of photographs, diagrams and cartoons. Hearst required his employees to present all news in a sensational spirit. When there was no sensation, it was simply invented.

In the image and likeness of American journalism, “yellow” journalism developed in Great Britain. From the very beginning of the publication of the first entertainment newspaper “Tit-Bits” in 1881, the editorial policy of many publications was based on a focus on mass tastes. The ideologists of the English “yellow” press, the Harmsworth brothers, were especially successful in this, who began their activities in 1888 with the publication of “yellow” magazines, and then the newspapers “Evening News”, “Daily Mail” and “Daily Mirror”. In the process of visualization, the British went further than the Americans. Illustrations began to appear in the listed newspapers, not only accompanying them, but also completely replacing the text.

Many researchers believe that the birthplace of the “yellow” press is America and England. This is not entirely true, since similar processes of the formation of mass journalism took place in pre-revolutionary Russia. The second half of the 19th century became a period favorable for the emergence of a new type of publication, designed not to replace the established type of high-quality newspaper, but to occupy its own niche in the field Russian press. In the materials of such “yellow” newspapers as “Petersburg leaf” (1864), “Petersburg newspaper” (1867), “Moscow leaf” (1881) and “Kopeyka newspaper” (1908) for the first time in Russian practice there are conscious attempts to embellish reality in order to attract an audience. The reporters' free presentation of actual facts turned the report into a fictionalized interpretation of the event. The printing of the numbers was quite primitive. However, thanks to the low price, high information richness, sensationalism, the presence of illustrations, an intelligible form and catchy innovative ways of presenting materials, and the ability to adapt to the needs of the mass reader, the Russian “yellow” press quickly gained popularity. The emergence of a new type of newspaper was a significant stage in the development of the content and form of journalism. Publications like “Petersburg Leaflet” and “Moskovskiy Leaflet” were not afraid to experiment, therefore they brought a fresh spirit to the printing industry, laid the foundations of the laws by which modern media live, and brought the newspaper closer to the average reader. However, the Bolsheviks coming to power in 1917 did not allow the Russian “yellow” press to fully develop.

By the beginning of World War II, the rapid development of the “yellow” press had slowed down in almost all countries where it existed. The reason was the changes that occurred in society, in the internal and foreign policy European countries. The situation changed in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, when the ideas of the sexual revolution became widespread. On this wave, in 1953, a new round of development of the “yellow” press began. Playboy magazine appears (publisher X. Hefner) - popular edition, entirely dedicated to the topic of sex. Familiarity with the research of human sexual behavior by sociologists C. Reich and A. Kinsey, as well as with the developments of W. Hearst, helped Hefner create theoretical basis for a publication in which intimate topics are placed on the same level as speeches by major political and public figures. Since that time, hypertrophied attention to coverage of sexual topics has become characteristic of most “yellow” publications.

A characteristic feature of the “yellow” press is the specificity of its interaction with the audience. A quality press positions itself in relation to its readers as a publication that encourages co-reflection and understanding of the essential processes taking place in modern reality. The mass press focuses on describing the most pressing social and everyday problems that are understandable to the mass audience. The “yellow” press focuses primarily on the reader, who needs to be given entertaining information without inviting co-thinking. The relationship between the addressee and the addressee in the “yellow” press is not parity: the author does not identify himself with the reader, he offers him a game based on his own ideas about what this reader needs. At the same time, the level of the author’s understanding of the audience is low. The reliance here is not on intellectual trust in the audience, but on its readiness to assimilate any proposed text. An excursion into the history of the formation of the “yellow” press as a type of publication and the study of the texts of this type of press made it possible to identify the most characteristic typological features of the “yellow” press.

1. One of the characteristics of the phenomenon under consideration is the shocking coverage of taboo topics. It lies in the renunciation of the inviolability of any, even the most hidden from public discussion, spheres of human existence. The “yellow” press shows especially great interest in three types of taboo information.

Firstly, this is an interest in intimate relationships. The type of publications studied exploits this topic in a special way, absolutizing its sensational and biological-naturalistic component, sometimes turning to the coverage of this thematic layer from only one side - pornographic. The publication of nudity and hypertrophied attention to the genitals is aimed at attracting the attention of an unassuming, but nevertheless mass reader. The core of the illustrative material in the “yellow” newspapers of Russia and the West today consists of either images of fashion models (the pioneers of the use of such photographs were the American magazine “Playboy” and the English newspaper “The Sun”), or photos of female readers sent to various “frank” competitions. Even brighter this technique demonstrate a variety of textual materials of the “yellow” press, in which the role of sexual relations in culture is exaggerated, and private interest is presented as a general trend determined by the biological laws of existence (a separate term has appeared to denote such a practice - “sexploitation”: from the combination of two words “sex” – sex, gender and “exploitation” – exploitation). The “yellow” press ignores the main tenet of culture in relation to covering the topic of intimate relationships, namely the presence of sufficiently compelling reasons for breaking the taboo.

Secondly, the “yellow” press shows excessive interest in the personal lives of people who find themselves in the center of public attention. A more detailed consideration of this area is typical for any type of printing. In quality press, this technique is widely used to reveal the character of a hero, material, or for investigative journalism. It should be noted that if the quality press limits the depth of penetration into private life by ethical boundaries, then the “yellow” press boldly violates these boundaries. In such a case, there is often a conflict between the public's right to information and the individual's right to privacy and security.

We have identified two levels of interference of the “yellow” press in private life: “soft” and “hard”. Examples of “soft” interference are reports about various official and semi-official events in the lives of celebrities (weddings, divorces, births, etc.). We call this practice “soft” because information about such events is not closed or intimate, although often only a limited circle of participants knows about them. The “hard” type of interference in private life represents a deep penetration into the sphere of informal, intimate relationships, into the sphere of health.

Thirdly, in the “yellow” press there is an unhealthy interest in the topic of death, especially when it is associated with abnormal or emergency circumstances. The crime sphere provides a lot of sensational materials on this topic to “yellow” publications. In these materials there is clearly a desire not to understand the reasons for what happened, but to scare the reader, because Special attention is devoted to the description of naturalistic details. The “yellow” press uses the method of combining the incongruous. In one issue, on the same pages, humorous and criminal materials converge and, moreover, in one material – tragic and comic features. Hence, a distinctive feature of almost all publications on the topic of death is a frivolous or even cynical attitude towards tragedy.

2. Sensationalism is an equally important feature of the “yellow” press. It manifests itself in a preliminary attitude toward the existence of an out-of-the-ordinary event that upsets the reader’s emotional balance in the direction of both positive and negative emotions. The search for real sensations and scandals is an integral task of any type of press, including the elite one. Coverage of real sensations in the “yellow” press is practically no different from the practice of covering them in the quality press. The only difference is in the goals. Firstly, mass media use sensationalism more often and, as a rule, only to attract attention. Secondly, the specificity of the type of press we are studying is manifested in the emphasis on emotional rather than other influence. “Yellow” publications almost never call the reader to co-thinking, but always to empathy. The peculiarity of this type of press turning to sensational information is that “yellow” publications mainly cover real sensations that cause (or strive to cause) in the audience largely anxious and angry emotions and to a much lesser extent positive ones. Third, the sensationalism of the tabloid press is often presented as false. Sooner or later, the desire of mass publications to write about sensations comes into conflict with the limited availability of “exciting facts” in reality. In the process of searching for a solution to this problem, the “yellow” press came to the practice of referring not only and not so much to real, but to false sensations (reports of stunning facts that did not take place in reality), which have a misinformation basis, illegally high degree subjectivity, “monomericity”. It is also typical to turn to quasi-sensations (reports of sensations obtained during a certain processing of facts of reality), characteristic features which are subjectivity, “monodimensionality,” a shift in semantic emphasis to a secondary detail (details), inadequacy of the significance of the event and its emotional presentation. Based on this, we can conclude that “yellow” journalism does not reflect reality, but reacts to it, and even allows for staging. Artificial sensations are a kind of journalistic analogue of mass literature. In the “yellow” press there is no balance of information interests; there is a bias towards sensational information at the expense of serious information. And hence the paradoxical consequence - insufficient information, on the one hand, and its redundancy, on the other. The insufficiency lies in turning to the same type of materials and ignoring a fairly wide range of economic, political and other problems. Because of this, a person does not receive complete, complete knowledge. Due to the high importance and uniqueness attributed to sensations, almost all the attention of the public is concentrated on them, which does not remain for the actual important events. Redundancy is an increased appeal to such topics, with which the journalist simply clogs up the information space and creates additional flows of information noise.

3. The next typological feature of the “yellow” press is thematic eclecticism. Unlike “yellow” newspapers, quality newspapers maintain a hierarchy of topics, which determines the order of their coverage depending on their information value. Purely entertaining information is not allowed on the front pages. In the “yellow” press, topics are distributed depending on the possibility of attracting reader attention. Because of this, in such publications either journalism of “zero” information flourishes (aimed only at attracting and entertaining), or a mosaic mixture of a wide variety of topics from various spheres of human existence (a mixture of what is truly important and what is clearly redundant). One of the reasons for eclecticism, in our opinion, is the excessive desire of the “yellow” media for exclusivity of materials.

The content of the mass press was also affected by the tendency towards specialization. But this specialization has taken on a special form. It can be described as “specialization in the non-standard”. There is no specific area that the “yellow” press constantly turns to cover. She is interested in a wide range of events different levels under one condition – non-standard information. We have identified two ways in which eclecticism manifests itself in the “yellow” media:

a) Leveling. Its meaning is to achieve equivalence between important and insignificant events. The dispersion of the flow of messages is in reality only visible; the selection of events about which they decide to give information is made by a certain social structure. In fact, the media themselves determine the “significance” of facts.

b) Excess. In this mode of thematic eclecticism, there is a harsher clash of serious and entertaining materials. This leads to the emergence of a special situation when materials with a low level of social significance displace informationally important materials into the background and even third place. Serious topics reflected in newspapers such as KP, Zhizn, The Sun, etc., written at a fairly high level, often give way to entertaining ones. The consumer of information develops a picture of reality in which it is impossible to distinguish between the important and the unimportant, which becomes one of the reasons for cognitive dissonance.

4. One of the core elements of the “yellow” press system is the predominance of the visual component over the textual one. Visualization is a common trend in all world media, but in high-quality publications, illustrative images organically complement text materials. In the “yellow” press there is an expansion of “bright” design elements: colors, illustrations, headlines. It was the “yellow” publications that were the first in the history of journalism to experiment with these aspects and, above all, with color, which is designed to perform two functions: firstly, to signal the importance of specific newspaper materials designed to sell the issue, and, secondly, to visually highlight the newspaper itself. a newspaper among its own kind. This is a very important point, since “yellow” publications are distributed mainly through the network retail. In addition to the standard black and white (on the inside out) headings, there are mainly yellow, orange, red and blue headings. Stripe colors include orange, yellow and blue bases. This color scheme is typical for almost all publications we reviewed. The use of these particular colors is not accidental, since, according to psychologists, these tones are the most attractive of the entire color spectrum. As for illustrations, in “yellow” publications they occupy a dominant position, since without them it is also impossible to fulfill the main task - attracting the attention of the audience. Often illustrations in the newspapers studied occupy up to half a page or more. This feature demonstrates the embodiment of the most important psychological effects of any mass communication - emotional and aesthetic. But the peculiarity of the “yellow” press is that the emotional component comes to the fore, often to the detriment of the aesthetic one. That is, exclusive or sensational photographs occupy significant areas even if the quality is low. The main focus of the mass press is “press photography”, in other words, reportage illustration, closely related to a specific fact, not exceeding the level of a private event, and therefore excluding variable interpretation. “Yellow” photography has practical significance, as does the second most popular visual component – information graphics. The main reason for the active use of diagrams, tables, and maps lies in the desire of the “yellow” press to simplify the material as much as possible. “Yellow” newspapers try to replace text with information graphics in order to make the newspaper as simple and comfortable as possible for consumption. And here the mass press is evolving towards an ideally simple and visual newspaper material - comics. For most “yellow” newspapers, the “comic” presentation of materials has already become familiar. It manifests itself in the combination of three elements - information content, accessibility and entertainment - important signs"infotainment".

It was the “yellow” press that made heading complexes a special design element at the end of the 19th century. She was also the first to exploit such a feature of header complexes as a function of a signal of the significance of the material. Informative headlines are used with equal success in both the yellow and quality press. However, due to the specifics of mass newspapers, their informative headlines have certain differences. The most noticeable thing is the design. In the yellow press, headlines have long been used as a full-fledged type of illustration. The headlines of the “yellow” press constantly balance on the brink of truth and lies. The desire to be attractive to the reader is achieved by ignoring the adequacy of the title and the text component. The practice includes misinformation headlines of the following subtypes:

a) Extra-textual headings. They are not associated with a specific text of the material, but rather with an extra-textual situation, which is more interesting compared to the content of the text.

b) Headings representing one of the abstracts of the publication. Unlike meaningful headlines from quality press, tabloid headlines try not to give away the whole essence of the story, but only attract attention with some detail.

c) A title that is a direct distortion or manipulation of the facts contained in the text.

One cannot thoughtlessly criticize the desire of “yellow” newspapers for a dynamic and sometimes aggressive type of layout, since there is no doubt that any newspaper should have an individual graphic face. However, in mass publications this person turns out to be individual in a particular case and standardized - in general consideration the type of press being studied. Almost all “yellow” newspapers use large illustrations, serious photo processing, infographics, large headlines (often not reflecting the topics of the materials), small texts, and the same color scheme. Thus, in the pursuit of individuality, mass newspapers are actually moving closer and closer together, leaning towards a universal model, which is most beneficial in the process of attracting the reader’s attention, but the “yellow” press is more likely to focus on advertising text. In everyday practice, the mass press tends to manipulate not opinion, but desire - the desire of the consumer to buy a newspaper, to become familiar with specific material.

All history XIX century is inextricably linked with the development of capitalist (market) relations. At a certain stage, these relations penetrated into the media sphere. In the “yellow” text, the features of the product are increasingly visible. In the “yellow” press there is a tendency to compose texts aimed at satisfying the unpretentious requests of the largest possible audience, and, as you know, the manufacturer always focuses the product on mass sales in order to obtain maximum profits. The consequence of this is the desire to sell a text (or a newspaper as a set of texts) for the maximum price, regardless of its real value. The quality of the text content fades into the background. The first is the “packaging” of the product – its visual design that attracts the reader’s attention. “Yellow” newspapers are the first to use color, illustrations, and large headline complexes. One of the reasons for the emergence of the “yellow” press can be called the further expansion of the functions of journalism. Along with the epistemological function, the axiological, creative and constructive, aesthetic, recreational and hedonistic functions begin to play an increasingly important role. The appearance of the last two is largely associated with the beginning of the functioning of the “yellow” press. The recreational function is realized through providing the audience with entertaining and trivial materials, allowing the reader to relax and escape from personal problems and work. The hedonic function is realized by fulfilling the reader’s “order”, by realizing the individual’s involvement in the communication process. These functions are performed by any type of press, however, in the field of “yellow” journalism, satisfying recreational and hedonistic demands is a constitutive feature of this type. Thus, the third – main – reason for the appearance of the “yellow” press is explained by the peculiarities of the evolution of mass consciousness in industrial and post-industrial society.

Depending on the presence of type-forming features and features that determine the structure of the publication, in the array of “yellow” press, certain types of publications can be distinguished as the quality of the analysis of reality decreases. This:

1. “Intermediate” publications, which gravitate towards quality newspapers, but have some basic features of “yellow” ones.

2. Tabloid publications, which contain basically all the features of “yellow” publications. They are more banal in content when compared with high-quality ones, and more “mercantile” than “intermediate”.

3. Actually “yellow”. Newspapers that have all the basic type-forming features noted above. They are distinguished by a pronounced pathos of hedonism, sensationalism and outright vulgarity.

4. Semi-pornographic and pornographic publications (they are characterized by the preservation of all the existing features of previous modifications, but with a bias towards coverage of deviant sexual relations).

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