ABSTRACT
The tabloid Trickster is a manifestation of the media Trickster, but it retains an existential distinction from its parent category: it does not reflect to its subscribers ‘the broken nature of modern lifestyles and the confusing diversity of choices’. The ‘trick’ of this bricoleur and colleagues – to make meaning of information and collective feelings in the postmodern media landscape – is characteristically an unintended outcome of the Trickster’s inherent disruptiveness. Thus, the spirit of the Trickster infused text-based popular journalism from its earliest days and through multiple technological transformations. However, its latest, and most transformative, metamorphosis, into the amorphous nexus of connections and modes of publication (e.g. smartphone, tablet, laptop) that reflects any internet-based ‘news-and-views’ brand (e.g. MailOnline), is the one that is most existentially challenging to that manifestation. To embed regulations, underpinned by royal charter or other statute, in an externally imposed code upon the practice, and product.
