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 (more) in entertainment-style programs. It is mostly discussed in relation to journalism and usually does not (but could well) cover the informational aspect in knowledge-testing quiz shows and in fictional drama like West Wing or Yes, Prime Minister.

Infotainment is used both as a normative concept—a term of abuse, even—assuming and worrying about a negative effect, and as an empirical concept to measure and make sense of what is supposed to be a trend. The claim of negative effects appears in various guises: from the “dumbing down” of the public, affecting our sense of reality and promoting a cynical understanding of politics, to disengagement and, in the end, to the decline of our civic culture. The trend is blamed on increasing commercialization and intermedia competition, having prompted more market-driven styles of journalism and more audience-pleasing genres of TV programming. Moreover, to reach the same audience in a multichannel reality as before and to show empathy, image, and authenticity in a more performance-oriented politics, politicians have to use as many platforms as they can find and try to bypass traditional [Page 336]informational genres, where critical journalists are more interested in their failures than what constitutes their personal charm. As such, infotainment is supposed to be the result of changes in both media and politics. Whether it increases and has a bad effect is, however, contested.

As to the trend, infotainment is not a present-day phenomenon. The popular style of the U.K.'s “penny dreadfuls” in the 19th century and the mixing of fact in fiction in some of the U.S. muckraking in the first half of the 20th century (e.g., the works of Truman Capote) and the new journalism (e.g., Tom Wolfe's essays) in the second half, have all met with the same critique. With more channels and increasing competition for audiences, genres that popularly package serious information have become successful, as have more emphatic journalistic styles. Comparative longitudinal research, however, that could substantiate whether there is a cross-cultural trend that substantive information is being “sauced over” by a gravy of personal feelings and dramatic encounters and that politicians are to be found more where the fun is in TV is far and few between. In fact, the little research there is gives at best a mixed picture: politicians appear in talk shows, but they generally prefer and still do appear mostly in serious programming, and though the style and format of TV news has been popularized, the informational level of TV news, current affairs programs, documentaries, and talk shows has not necessarily declined.

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