Since the creation of the media, first printed, then radio, television and now what is called new media, journalism and entertainment were their main content. These two forms of media creativity go hand in hand until, in recent times, have begun to permeate to the extent that among them nearly all the boundaries are erased. French theorist Jean Claude Bertrand believes that this limit has never been clear, but that both sides of the aforementioned creativity can be useful. “The line between journalism and entertainment has never been clear and it is becoming blurred: the popular press has always been prone to pastime, whereas today, many commercial media most of its products present as ‘show businesses. Therefore, some overlaps are unavoidable: news may be interesting, yet irrelevant, and vice versa, entertainment can teach a lot” (Bertran, 2007:18). When it comes to serious journalism, of course, we cannot talk about the thing that the news may be interesting, yet irrelevant, but about the news that are interesting but also important
or very important. Recognizing this fact Bertrand also notes that although both entertainment and serious journalism serve the public, “the rules of conduct can hardly be identical.”
Bertrand only mentions the press, and now no one needs persuasion that the entertainment as media offer, is mostly taken by television. Cultural theorist Ahim Barsch recognizing that the concept of entertainment as well as the notion of literature is subject to historical change and conditioned by cultural factors, gives an explanation of entertainment with reference to the phenomenon of television. “Because of the talk-shows on television and the subsequent development of new show-programmes, reality TVs (whose predecessor is TV quest staged as a detective story) and various collage reportages of entertainment character, genres frequent on private TV stations, it seems that the strict distinction between entertainment and education, and entertainment and information, has become almost untenable” (Barš, 2008:159).
History of media records moments when entertainment has helped some of the most respected media companies to maintain their lead and secure future. The mighty BBC is felt that need only after three decades of operation as a public broadcaster. When in the fifties the ether of Great Britain, hitherto sacrosanct media area of this public corporation, was penetrated by Radio Luxembourg and its unofficial, colloquial speech, a simple programming concept with a lot of popular music, endangered BBC radio, paradigmatic public service had to adjust. “BBC radio found itself in a position to lead the competitive struggle not only against television, but also against Radio Luxembourg that the audience found more entertaining than ‘serious’ and ‘highly educated’ BBC radio. A number of changes have been made in the production programme and many innovations to improve listening audience were introduced, but without much success” (Šingler, Viringa, 2000:59). Quaintness of entertainment, then, made “too serious” BBC to try with more effort and to accept challenges. Fortunate circumstance is that in this period there was one of the technological revolutions and it brought stereophony and transistor sets as an innovation that could not be used by television, contributed to the survival of radio in general, including BBC radio, but this media giant was more helped by conceptual adjustment. BBC has introduced programmes on the radio, and on television that are popular, fresh, witty with hosts who speak the way people speak to each other, with more popular music and new shows of humorous and satirical type. But with all the changes, this media company has not accepted the populism and pandering to the low tastes of the audience, but the dilemma: the seriousness or popularity was solved by formula of serious but popular contents, which strengthened the dignity of public service.
Entertainment is one of the man’s needs. The more civilization and culture of living advanced man had more free time and tried to organize his leisure time creatively. Entertainment, as Archim Barsch interpreted it is “conceptual layered complex, associated with pleasure, enjoyment, relaxation, play, and it is contrary to boredom. The concept of entertainment is often encountered in phrases such as
the entertainment industry, electronic for entertainment, media for entertainment, entertainment music, popular literature, the entertainment sector” (Brans, 2008:769). Theorist Joseph Turow talks about the enjoyment and connects this need with the media. “The desire for pleasure or personal satisfaction is one of the basic human instincts. Watching a television programme, Bible study, solving crosswords in the newspaper, and even reading an ad can cause a feeling of satisfaction for many people” (Tjurou, 2012:52). Turow notes that “news, TV soap operas that are broadcasted, sport and drama in prime time can stimulate conversations with friends, relatives, colleagues at work, even with strangers” (Tjurou, 2012: 52), which shows communicative value of entertainment.
Range of needs and possibilities to meet them, when it comes to entertainment, is really complex and in modern times completely legitimate. But it is one thing when it comes to entertainment separated from the information that is “oxygen of democracy”, the basis for forming opinions about the most important social issues, political decision-making, and quite another when such information is mixed with entertainment or given in a fun way. This creates a kind of construction or “banal communication”, recalls Dragan Štavljanin referring to theorist Bourdieu. “It is widespread opinion that the purpose of the media is not news production as a function of democracy, but profit. That is why the media are increasingly becoming part of the ‘entertainment circus’, and journalism is becoming more tabloid, trivial and banal, thus ignoring the alternative options, favouring the dominant trends, so that, as pointed out by Bourdieu, we have ‘banal communication’ at work`` (Štavljanin, 2012:467).
When the gauge of social relevance and necessity slips to gauge of needs of the audience, how the form “entertainment journalism” is usually justified, the trivialization of content that was named “New moronism” is reached. “Media commentators are increasingly disturbed by the idea that serious informative journalism (in printed form and on TV) threatens what the Guardian reporter, Nicholas Fraser, called ‘new moronism’. Fraser, during the attack on ‘the vanity of modern media’ mentions a common topic in the campaign against increasingly lower journalistic standards – an example prompted by news companies in United States” (Prajs, 2011:634). Stewart Price in his book mentions other examples of trivia in which are privacy and the death of an individual, in the reckless way in “humorous” form presented to the public.
These trends in journalism and media content lead not only to summarizing of the contents which can hardly go together and have in the activities of traditional media always been separated, but also to unifying forms, journalistic practices, or genres. In other words, the scene is hybridized which has the aim of maintaining and multiplying the audience. “Media labourers who work in the fields of entertainment, news, and education question the value of hybridization in order to use it to attract and retain an audience” (Tjurou, 2012:102). Turow therefore concludes, the occurrence which represents an organized, systematic, thoughtful way of finding new forms of attracting audience, where synthesizing of forms is
not put in question, even when entertaining elements of information water their cognitive and, for the formation of relevant social attitudes, significant aspects.
The practice has already legitimized journalistic style that combines informative and entertainment, and that is combination of two English words information and entertainment creates a phrase infotainment. “Infotainment is information based on media content or programming that includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers” (Demers, 2005:143). This interpretation of infotainment is not the only one, but it is not much different to other interpretations. Many practitioners and analysts interpret it as a statement of information in a different, more relaxed and fun way. In journalism, the popularization of the idea of adding entertainment content to the news led to the separation of the so-called “serious” and “light” news, i.e. the contents that are more and less socially relevant. “Journalists often consider serious news as place for fair, accurate and balanced reporting, with very little (or no) comments, but at the same time they believe that the light news are area where you can display thoughts and affection” (Tjurou, 2012:97). Light news, under this analysis, should include content related to cooking, amateur theatre, voluntary neighbourhood actions, but practice shows that very serious news are often interpreted in a similar way, with a touch of fun.
The media today are more and more becoming more organized arena of spectacle. The need to attract audiences and better positioning in the market is increasing and the abandonment of traditional forms of journalism increasingly resorted. Reality must include spectacles, and if there aren’t any, media will create them. Thus the spectacle permeate tabloid ethos, sensationalism, triviality, with the justification that “the audience loves it.” “All epochs had their own distinctive spectacles but modern media make a decisive break in the history of the spectacle because spectacle in ancient palaces was representative only due to the high status of their contractors and immediate audience. The representativeness of the modern spectacle is inseparable from its spread to many and to remote media audiences” (Couldry, 2008:162). So the representativeness, in this formulation of reality, actually is not there, because neither the global audience can be spoken about in this sense, since global cannot be representative, nor the content can meet such a large number of individuals. Theorist Douglas Kellner speaks about the permeation of media spectacle and infotainment: “Today, society and culture of the spectacle creates a new kind of entertainment information of society, or what might be called ‘infotainment society’ ... Currently, we are entering into a new form of techno-capitalism marked by synthesis of capital and information technology and entertainment industries. All or most of it is the production of ‘infotainment society’ and the Culture of Spectacle” (Kellner, 2003:11).
Mixing fun and serious content is dangerous to journalism because it leads to the “popular journalism”, which reinforces the question of trivializing the content, says Stewart Price, noting also the excuse that “the audience likes something”. “Media commentators allege that serious journalism is in danger because of the
increasing lower standards and preferences to sensationalism. Media companies in Britain and America justify increasing informal approach to the news by saying that the audience prefers it that way. There are two aspects of the problem of ‘dumbing down’ of news: content and form” (Prajs, 2011:712).
Entertainment has, therefore, largely become an integral part of the media offer, but recently began to dominate over other contents, informative, educational, and artistic. It is a legitimate part of the broadcasting media, but if it is mixed with the serious news content, it may seriously jeopardize the journalistic profession. In other words, if journalists become performers, creators of entertainment and light content, then they are useless for serious information, reports and journalistic research. In these circumstances, the question of credibility, convincing and confidence of what is journalist working on behalf of the public. That is why, for example, the attitude of inadequacy of appearing journalists in the commercial ads, has long ago become standard. Today, we could consider the extension of this standard to other forms of journalistic engagement.