Clickbait and banal news

The reliance by news publishers on clickbait-style content and what we might call “banal” news raises a number of important ethical issues. From stories about lost animals on local citizen journalism websites to news about celebrities and shopping in the mainstream press, there is an increasing presence of the everyday in the news, which is put to use to underpin news business models and develop loyal audiences. Such content has been defended by mainstream publishers as necessary in driving audiences to the journalism they need by giving them the journalism they seem to want. In the community media space, the focus on the banal and everyday serves to act as a kind of social “glue,” allowing participation in media and supporting community cohesion. While it may be easy to dismiss this type of content as trivial, for some scholars it is problematic, crowding out “real” journalism by reducing quality in favor of the need for a click-through at whatever cost. The chapter examines what form this kind of content takes in commercial and community contexts, setting out the parameters for a critical engagement with clickbait and banal news.