Politicizing Online Tabloids in Times of Trouble: American "Gawker" and Polish "Pudelek"

• In Event: 322 - Regular Session. Identity, Diversity, and Inequality: The Work and Politics of Popular Culture

Abstract

The research project is focused on the politicization of online tabloids, the main question being: how, based on the online discussions in these gossip-centered media, should a just society look like? The research focuses on online tabloids in two different countries: Gawker in the US and Pudelek.pl in Poland, states which have all been recently undergoing a right-wing political shift. The aim of my project is to understand what visions of a just world and a desired social order the "celebrfied," gossip-laced political news, shaped by writers and the commenting readers in online tabloids reveal. What political, economic and social issues are the most tabloid-worthy in this online tabloid environment? How do these topics, previously largely reserved for hard journalism, become celebrified? Moreover, how are politics, economic and social issues embraced in online tabloids, by the staff writers and by the commenting readers? These new online scandalizing and moralizing spaces encourage opinions from ordinary, non-expert audiences, which are otherwise largely invisible in discussions on topics of public importance. This openness to opinion-sharing on matters of public significance by "average Joes" in an unlikely online space for gossip is my point of departure for sociological exploration. As such, the proposed research is inspired the basic sociological idea of uncovering "webs of significance" related to everyday civic practice.

Author

• Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer, Kozminski University