TABLOIDS AS WINDOWS INTO OUR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA GOSSIP FROM AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE.

Mass media gossip is interesting to many people, as evidenced by the proliferation of gossip magazines and gossip television shows. Despite its popularity, there has been little research into the evolutionary underpinnings of why gossip contains particular topics. Furthermore, no one has provided input to those working in gossip-based media. Therefore, we begin by defining and explaining mass media gossip using an evolutionary, biosocial perspective. To demonstrate that the media workers may benefit from relying on knowledge of evolved human nature in their work, we conducted a study. We examined the content of three successful tabloids, using a list of evolutionary-based topics created a priori. The results indicate that tabloids reflect fitness-relevant topics that were important throughout our evolutionary past. The tabloids equally represent both sexes, and while they mostly concentrate on entertainers and royalty, they do pay some attention to unknown individuals. By correlating who and what is gossiped about, we found celebrities are more often the subjects of stories involving wealth, while unknown individuals are almost always gossiped about within the context of life-threatening events. We use our study to provide guidelines for those working in media, which will hopefully enable their work to obtain maximum audience interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]