THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TITLE BLOCKS ON NEWS PORTALS: THE CASE OF THE CRIME COLUMN

A large number of news portals and social networks in the everyday communication environment has significantly influenced the change of the traditional genre structure, but also the technique of collecting, selecting, processing and distributing information. Under the pressure of productivity and clickbaiting, crime cases columns in market-centric media are becoming an increasingly important part of daily reporting. Hence, the title blocks on the portals are the subject of this paper, with the hypothesis that their visual and textual contents differ significantly from those in traditional newspapers. The informative core of the message, characterized by sensationalism and intent to awaken curiosity, and visually enriched with photographs of actors and capital letters, greatly influences the audience’s choice. This paper, through the case study of the disappearance of a 27-year-old young man from a neighboring country, determines the basic characteristics of news headlines and reports published on the news portal “Serbia Today” (Serb. „Srbija Danas”). The results of quantitative and qualitative content analysis are also relevant for other portals, because a large number of texts are shared between the different portals. Emotionally and expressively marked words aimed at the attention of users awaken the users’ empathy and desire to actively participate in a social chronicle that excites and upsets the wider community. Qualitative analysis also indicated a close connection between the headline and the content of the report, with a predominantly sensationalist tone, as well as a clear commitment to constant public attention.