From Tony Blair and his cabinet, to celebrity chefs and footballers, the British tabloids provide sensational coverage of the private and public lives of political figures and celebrities alike, and help shape the nation's perceptions of people and events. These often derided newspapers are important and influential factors in the mediation of everyday life in Britain today.

This book takes four popular tabloid newspapers and shows that they use a variety of linguistic strategies to depict an image of contemporary Britain; by examining how a community of readers is woven into the language of the newspapers in an impersonation of the readers it seeks to attract.

Including examples taken from a month long study - a month in the country - Martin Conboy considers how this imaginary community of the British nation is drawn through themes such as outsiders, insiders, women, celebrity, history and politics. The work also demonstrates how the tabloids constitute a highly successful modern variation of journalism which has spread its influence beyond the boundaries of print and triggered much debate about the related phenomenon of 'tabloidization.'

This critical study of the newspapers' version of popular rhetoric will be of interest to students and researchers of English, Media and Communication, as well as the general reader.