ABSTRACT:The crisis of cultural journalism has recently been a topical issue in many countries. In Finland, too, it has been claimed that arts pages, previously dominated by aestheticallyoriented critics, have been shrinking and become more news-oriented and entertaining. In the article, we will explore the change of structures, values and ideals of arts reporting as friction between two opposing paradigms, the aesthetic and the journalistic, and analyse how the changes are reflected in the contents of the cultural pages and in the self-image of arts journalists. The research data of this case study consists of the arts pages of the biggest national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, and of various internal planning documents related to its management. In addition to a longitudinal content analysis, we also employed theme interviews with and observation of cultural journalists. The results show a change of paradigm in arts journalism, with the consequence that the previously autonomous department has become an inseparable part of the news organization, increasingly adapted to meet the challenges of news journalism.
Reviews of arts and culture are typically focused on legitimate forms of art rather than popular and consumer culture. Looking beyond such institutionalized reviews, this article inquires into the online-native, bottom-up forms of reviewing. The aim is to identify user-generated reviews of popular cultural objects, defined through the user reviewers’ position as cultural consumers and the size of their audiences. The objects of study are YouTube channels that include a regular output of review videos. First, the 5,000 most-subscribed channels are analysed to identify content creators who establish a relationship to cultural objects. Second, types of reviewing are identified, and the methods and boundaries of ‘vernacular reviewing’ are discussed. User-generated reviewing on YouTube presents a meta-practice related to cultural objects for young audiences that is marked by the use of hybrid genres, humour, irony and the idea of co-consuming, reflected in the concept of intramediation
This study looks at the emerging forms of reviewing cultural products by investigating #bookreviews on Instagram. The multiple-case study focuses on characteristics of bookreview posts in global and national contexts. First, the global community is outlined, with the help of quantitative data (N=163,269 entries). Second, a local book-reviewing community (N=645 entries) is studied, with a thematic analysis of platform and genre affordances. Instagram-native formats identified include textual reviews, metacoverage of reviews, video reviews, reviews with visual effects and facilitated reviews. The findings have implications for the conceptualisation of user-generated reviewing as part of cultural critique, which requires the incorporation of the consumption/prosumption paradigm into the understandings of cultural intermediation.
Arts and cultural journalism have been found in numerous debates during recent decades to struggle in the midst of a crisis. This article traces the recorded discourse of professionalism that considers cultural journalism to be in a state of decline. A literature review on academic research and contributions in public debates provides an insight into the 'crisis talk' of the last two decades and unveils general controversies in the development of the professional culture of cultural journalism. By mapping the discourse in terms of the unfavourable directions that the development of cultural journalism has moved in, the analysis constructs a model for the future research of this specialized branch of journalism.
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