If you want to know when the era of 'Gotcha' tabloid journalism
began, look back to the straitlaced 19th century. Our Victorian
ancestors had an insatiable thirst for sensation, and ever-willing
newspaper proprietors were happy to provide it. Whether it was the
grisliest (and often made-up) details of a murder, the most
salacious celebrity scandal or the latest gossip from behind Palace
walls, you can bet the Victorians were up for it. As broadcaster
and Victorian expert Michael Diamond says in this, his first book,
19th-century society may have put on a prim facade but behind it
lurked a nation of tittle-tattlers. And for the first time the
people were able to buy and read what they wanted, as literacy
increased and newspaper taxes were scrapped. The book's subtitle,
The Spectacular, the Shocking and the Scandalous, lays the ground
in much the way a 19th-century periodical would have done. Penny
dreadfuls were not the only purveyors of the lurid and prurient,
however. Diamond draws much of his material from The Times, which
no less than other papers believed in delivering thrills to its
readers, though it hid them behind a facade of public interest.
Eight sections deal with scandals and sensations of royalty,
politicians, religions, crime, celebrities and so on. Actually some
of the 'sensations' appear pretty tame by today's standards,
although the media of the time gave them protracted coverage
together with the fanciful impressions of artists. Despite his
subject, Michael Diamond does not really get into the tabloidese
spirit. He takes a serious approach, writing more like a social
historian with comment and analysis. This isn't how the Victorians
would have liked their scandals served up, perhaps, but it does
give us a balanced view of what ordinary 19th-century people were
talking about and what kept them gossiping over their daily chores.
It seems they weren't that much different from ourselves. Even the
newspapers haven't changed much except in appearance - they
continue to serve up scandal and some of them still hide it behind
a facade of public interest. (Kirkus UK)
The extraordinary phenomenon of "sensation" characterized the Victorian age. Today, the influence of mass media on the public consciousness is an accepted feature of society. The nineteenth century witnessed an explosion in the printed media: newspapers became cheap, nationally distributed and easily accessible to all classes. The reporting of sensations in a manner designed to attract the widest possible audience and maximize sales dramatically shaped the relationship between the media and the public -- a relationship which continues to resonate today.Drawing on a wealth of contemporary material, Michael Diamond explores the stories that impacted on Victorian society through the eyes of the contemporary media. In revealing the pervasiveness of sensational reporting, Diamond sheds light on the Victorian appetite for gruesome and explicit reportage on murders and the sex trade. At the same time celebrated figures as diverse as Charles Dickens and Barnum and Bailey are portrayed against the background of the music halls and popular press that originally gave them life.Michael Diamond s passionate analysis of the period, from political sleaze and scandal to West End hits and the "feel-good" factor, shows that the reporting methods of today s popular media in many respects had its origins in the Victorian press. By turns amusing, poignant and tragic, 'Victorian Sensation' shows that sensation was as integral a part of society in the nineteenth century as it is today.
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