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Sensationalism   /sɛnsˈeɪʃənəlˌɪzəm/   Listen
Sensationalism

noun
1.
Subject matter that is calculated to excite and please vulgar tastes.
2.
The journalistic use of subject matter that appeals to vulgar tastes.  Synonym: luridness.
3.
(philosophy) the ethical doctrine that feeling is the only criterion for what is good.  Synonym: sensualism.
4.
(philosophy) the doctrine that knowledge derives from experience.  Synonyms: empiricism, empiricist philosophy.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sensationalism" Quotes from Famous Books



... and pellucid as is everything that comes from the pen of the great Manchester preacher. Even in treating the simplest incident he surprises his readers, and that without once forcing the note, or seeking sensationalism."—Christian World. ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... oratory could play skillfully, as a master on a mighty organ, until every note in them thrilled to life and utterance. The Rev. Geoffrey Mountain was a good man; of the earth, earthy, to be sure, but with an unquestionable sincerity of belief and purpose which went far to counterbalance the sensationalism ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... humorist. Even so, he is perhaps our most representative writer in this field; for he is as thoroughly American as a man can be, and his rare culture and kindness are in refreshing contrast to the crude horseplay or sensationalism that is unfortunately trumpeted abroad as New ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... 1897 a great cry was raised about what was called "yellow" journalism, the mischievous sensationalism of certain metropolitan newspapers. The matter was taken up by the W. C. T. U. and Miss Willard sent out an address to prominent women asking that they should protest against this journalism and also against such spectacles as the recent Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... whole nation, reaching people through those usual conduits of press and pulpit, by which the products of philosophic thought are conveyed to unphilosophic minds. As naturally in France, hostility to all those influences which were believed to have brought about the Revolution, to sensationalism in metaphysics, to atheism in what should have been theology, to the notion of sovereignty of peoples in politics, inevitably sought a rallying-point in a renewed allegiance to that prodigious spiritual system ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... thrills. It is true that there is a certain amount of sham oratory surviving in the Senate, but the very fact that it is sham protects it from the press. The real thing would irritate and alarm the spirits of mediocrity and sensationalism which dominate the press to-day. A sensational speech, one in which a man makes a fool of himself, it delights in, and it encourages him by half a column of head-lines. A speech by a great man, granted that we had one, carried away ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... chief literary aliment of large numbers—is the newspaper press, which illustrates necessarily the haste, pressure and superficiality of writings of that ephemeral class. Canadian journals, however, have not yet descended to the degraded sensationalism of New York papers, too many of which circulate in Canada to the public detriment. On the whole, the tone of the most ably conducted journals—the Toronto Globe, and the Montreal Gazette notably—is quite on a level with the tone of debate in ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... the senses lay at the root of the whole theory of man and society, in the light of which the revolutionary thinkers, Diderot, Helvetius, and their fellows, criticised the existing order and exposed the reigning prejudices. This sensationalism (which went beyond what Locke himself had really meant) involved the strict relativity of knowledge and led at once to the old pragmatic doctrine of Protagoras, that man is the measure of all things. And the spirit of the French philosophers of the eighteenth century was distinctly pragmatic. The ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... enough in itself. But on the top of that fell the miracle of her love affair. Her marriage was like a dream of romance to her, untrue, incredible. Then there was the terrific episode of Julian on the previous night. One would have supposed that after that the sensationalism of events would cease. But, no! The unforeseeable had now occurred, something which reduced all else ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... belli[Lat]; irritation &c. (anger) 900; passion &c. (state of excitability) 825; thrill &c. (feeling) 821; repression of feeling &c. 826; sensationalism, yellow journalism. V. excite, affect, touch, move, impress, strike, interest, animate, inspire, impassion, smite, infect; stir the blood, fire the blood, warm the blood; set astir; wake, awake, awaken; call forth; evoke, provoke; raise ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Spiro Samara, a Greek by birth, but an Italian by training and sympathies, seems to have lost the secret of the delicate imagination which nearly made 'Flora Mirabilis' a European success, though his 'Martire,' a work of crude sensationalism, enjoyed an ephemeral success in Italy. Franchetti, the composer of 'Asrael,' 'Cristoforo Colombo,' and other works, conceived upon a scale grandiose rather than grand, appears anxious to emulate the theatrical glories of Meyerbeer, and to make up for poverty of inspiration by spectacular ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... just nervy, and sensationalism helps. It takes one out of one's self for a moment; ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... accused of undue sensationalism in relating the somewhat dramatic Sicilian incident, I will assure my reader that the story does not exaggerate present conditions in various parts of the island. In fact, Il Duca and Tato are drawn from life, although they did not have their mountain lair so near ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offenses against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... of the various adventures participated in by a group of bright, fun-loving, up-to-date girls who have a common bond in their fondness for outdoor life, camping, travel and adventure. They are clean and wholesome and free from sensationalism. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... expression than is found in any previous opera. Thoroughly cosmopolitan in subject, it is nevertheless German in that its lofty earnestness of tone offers a protest against all shallowness and sensationalism. The entire story of the opera is told in tones in ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... has found so dreadfully unsettling in the West. If some thousands of years of paganism have produced the patience and industry that Dean Inge admires, and if some thousand years of Christianity have produced the sentimentality and sensationalism which he regrets, the obvious deduction is that Dean Inge would be much happier if he were a heathen Chinese. Instead of supporting Christian missions to Korea or Japan, he ought to be at the head of a great mission in London for converting the English ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... frequency and high success. Many of the genre statues and decorative reliefs of the time are admirable and delightful. Moreover, the old uses of sculpture were not abandoned, and though the tendency toward sensationalism was strong, a dignified and exalted work was sometimes achieved. But, broadly speaking, we must admit the loss of that "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur"—the phrase is Winckelmann's—which stamped the creations of the age of Phidias. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... stories are all of a domestic character, and their interest, therefore, is not so intense as if they were more highly seasoned with sensationalism, but it is of a healthy and abiding character. Almost any new book which her publisher might choose to announce from her pen would get an immediate and general reading. The interest in her tales begins at once, and is maintained to the ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton



Words linked to "Sensationalism" :   positivism, experimentalism, journalese, British empiricism, empiricist philosophy, sensationalist, sensualism, sensationalistic, subject matter, logical positivism, substance, message, sensational, philosophical doctrine, philosophy, unsensational, philosophical theory, content



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