Is Facebook driving tabloidization? A cross-channel comparison of two German newspapers

Abstract

In highly commercialized media markets, newspapers must be present on social media whose logic favours user engagement, shareworthiness, and virality. This might foster increasingly tabloid-like reporting, but empirical studies on the actual effects on newspaper content are widely lacking. We investigate how far newspaper type (quality paper vs. tabloid) and distribution channel (print version, website, Facebook page) influences the degree of tabloidization of two newspapers’ political news. In a content analysis of political news articles of FAZ and BILD in their print versions, on their websites, and on their Facebook pages (n=2,441), we measure tabloidization on three dimensions (topic, focus, style). FAZ is most tabloid-like on Facebook, but with only small differences to its print version and website. BILD is already relatively tabloid-like offline and continues, but not further strengthens, this strategy online. We argue for a modified measurement of tabloidization that considers the characteristics of social media.