'Real life' packaged for consumers: the fait divers as heuristic for scrutinizing the construction of moral panics in the press

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Title: 'Real life' packaged for consumers: the fait divers as heuristic for scrutinizing the construction of moral panics in the press
Author(s): Lee, Carolyn; Hecq, Dominique
Abstract: This paper tests and presents the French concept of the fait divers in terms of whether it can offer new insights into the construction of moral panics, and into the print media's role in this process, as well as suggesting new strategies for reading and scrutinizing the phenomenon. Indeed, sensationalized news items (a rough translation of 'fait divers'), such as those about the so-called race-riots at Sydney's Cronulla Beach in December 2005, have been avidly consumed by Australian newspaper readers. Newspaper stories on the riots, taken from the two Sydney newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph, form the corpus of the current project in which we analyse this sample of media texts to determine to what extent the news reports conform to the genre of the fait divers. We also apply theories of the fait divers---for example, those of Barthes and Baudrillard---to unpack the ways in which moral panics are constructed and/or maintained at least in part through news reports.
Publication type: Book chapter
Source: Meedias et Culture special issue: Recits et dispositifs du fait divers / Isabelle Garcin-Marrou and Claude Jamet (eds.), pp. 91-101
Publication year: 2008
Keyword(s): Australia; Creative writing; Cultural theory; Fait divers; Mass hysteria; Media sensationalism; Media studies; Moral panic; News presentation; Newspapers; Race riots; Racial violence; Racism; Sydney; Writing
Publisher: L'Harmattan
ISBN: 9782296074972, 2296074979
Peer reviewed