Cultural journalism—Journalism about culture

Abstract

This article is an introduction to “cultural journalism,” a specialised type of professional journalism that covers and debates the broad field of arts and culture. The article points to some of the research traditions that have engaged with the news media's coverage of arts and culture and inspired contemporary cultural journalism research, among them cultural sociology and the sociology of journalism. Furthermore, the article outlines the institutional roles and epistemology of cultural journalism, which in several respects differ from dominating normative conceptions of Western journalism. At the same time, the article shows that contemporary journalism shares many similarities with the approaches found in culural journalism, such as interpretation, emotionality, and subjectivity. Finally, the article points to important future paths for cultural journalism research, including comparative perspectives and the political dimensions and potentialities of cultural journalism.

The Tensions of the Cultural News Beat

“…The epistemology of parts of cultural journalism is, as mentioned, grounded in a broad socio-cultural interest as well as in analytical, interpretive approaches and in knowledge production involving emotions and subjectivity. This has distanced the beat from the objectivism and fact-driven methodology typical of much Western journalism since the early and mid-twentieth century (Kristensen 2019). The critical, interpretive tradition is epitomized by the cultural review, a key genre of cultural journalism.…”

“…Though we highlight the Nordic context -both the similarities and differences within the region -we contextualize these debates in international research. Internationally, scholars from aesthetic disciplines and cultural studies, media historians and cultural sociologists, among others, have studied the news media's debates about and coverage of artistic and cultural domains (Kristensen 2019). Studies of cultural journalism and broader cultural criticism have been produced in Brazil (Golin and Cardoso 2009), the Czech Republic/Czechia (Kotišová 2020), Germany (Reus and Harden 2015), Great Britain (Harries and Wahl-Jorgensen 2007), the Netherlands (Janssen 1999), Portugal (Silva and Santos 2014), and the United States (Szántó, Levy, and Tyndall 2004).…”

Media as the great emancipators? Exploring relations between media repertoires and cultural participation in Flanders

“…An area often considered to be marked by social stratification (Katz-Gerro, 1999, 2002; Mellander and Florida, 2018; Van Eijck, 1999; Warde and Gayo-Cal, 2009). Media have thus been described as mediators or gatekeepers of cultural taste, and authors have considered (cultural) media content a point of departure in exploring the emergence of cultural omnivores (Kristensen, 2019: 2).…”

Demoryhmästä pörssiyhtiöksi: Remedyn menestystarinan kehystys sanoma- ja pelilehdistössä 1997–2019

“…Toimittajien harrastama varaukseton ylistys havainnollisti tiedonvälityksen ja PR-toiminnan välisen rajan hämärtymisen, joka on varsin tavanomaista pelijournalismille (Nieborg ja Sihvonen 2009). Tosin kyseinen ilmiö koskee laajemminkin kulttuurijournalismin kenttää (Kristensen 2019).…”