Kitsch in Journalism: The Commodification and Politicisation of a TV Weather Report

From a micro look at ‘infotainment’ found in previously non-political weather reporting, this chapter widens to explore the kitsch elements embedded and employed in the messaging—confirming a recipient’s patriotic, religious, erotic, and political needs and habits as well as filling the present with the comfortable noise of familiarity; precisely, Fox News Weather Channel coverage and how it uses characteristic kitsch elements in commodifying information and, ultimately, monetising the climate crisis. The chapter answers the following research questions: (1) What are kitsch’s potential consequences (positive and negative) in journalism? (2) How are particular components/stages of the journalistic process susceptible to developing kitsch behaviours? (3) How does commodifying the weather report exemplify the kitsch experience in production and consumption? The research methods applied are the literature review and case study, and the primary analytical tool for these analyses is the kitsch experience theory (Szostak & Sułkowski, Kitsch in Management: Characteristic Forms, Carriers and Propagators, In: Education Excellence and Innovation Management: A 2025 Vision to Sustain Economic Development during Global Challenges (pp.7584–7598). Publisher: International Business Information Management Association, 2020).