Infotainment

This relatively new concept has multiple meanings. It has been used to refer to such diverse content phenomena as soft news, personalization and human interest in traditionally hard news TV formats; program genres like talk shows that mix seriousness with fun, factual opinions with private feelings; the popular, lighthearted, or emphatic style of journalists; and to the introduction of music, dramatization, and fictional elements in informational TV genres. It is mainly used in relation to television, but sometimes the content of the tabloid press is similarly characterized. As such, infotainment is an ambiguous label for the concept. It blurs the distinction between information (linked to knowledge and citizenship) and entertainment (linked to fun, distraction, and passive consumption) and points at politicians going popular by appearing ...