Part of
Diachronic Developments in English News DiscourseEdited by Minna Palander-Collin, Maura Ratia and Irma Taavitsainen
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 6] 2017
► pp. 119–136
This article traces continuities within the development of British popular newspaper traditions from the Sunday weekly publications of the early and mid-nineteenth century, through the rise of the mass daily press and culminating in the launch of the first British newspaper that could be accurately termed “tabloid” in both format and style: the Daily Mirror. It is claimed that an explicit appeal in these newspapers to readers who see themselves as outside a privileged elite and a corresponding critical approach to elites, both political and social, has always formed part of this commercially successful manifestation of popular culture.