Tabloid journalism has long been a highly contested news form. With a sensationalist ap­proach and an easily digested mix of entertainment and news, it has often attracted mass audiences at the same time as it has stirred controversy and raised concern about its im­pact on public discourse. Originating in the tabloid newspaper, associated both with a small newspaper format and a particular news style, the term “tabloid” is today consid­ered to characterize a range of other media content, extending to popular TV programsand certain kinds of online news. The rise and development of tabloid journalism, in com­bination with wider processes shaping the media, has moreover led to a debate about“tabloidization,” involving ideas about shifting priorities in journalism and the media landscape as a whole.

Although tabloidization has no standard definition, an overview of empirical research us­ing the concept as a starting point highlights analyses of various media, historical peri­ods, and media markets, adding to understandings of tabloidization as multi-faceted and context-bound. Such a process, furthermore, has been viewed both as a possible threat to the public sphere and as potentially entailing democratizing elements, relating to long-standing depictions of tabloid journalism as either “dumbing down” or “reaching out.” Yet contemporary analysis in this field has tended to paint a more complex picture of both phenomena as well as pointing to emerging questions around the category of tabloid jour­nalism in digital settings.