Cristine Sarrimo

Creative Writing as a Communicative Act : An Artistic Method

Abstract In my research project, I have interviewed students and teachers on a two-year university study programme in creative writing about how they perceive their own work and their own roles as authors. With Habermas theory of communicative action as my starting point, I have devised a theoretical model to explore the act of creative writing. This article discusses writers work procedures in a communicative network of institutional and everyday practices, in the light of established notions of literature and authors. In my informants references to their own writing, the metaphor of ‘space’ – specifically, how an ‘inner’ creative space interacts with an ‘outer’ public one – is crucial. This metaphor applies to several levels of communicative action: individual, institutional, public and textual. Owing to its limited length, this article comments solely on the individual and institutional levels.

The press crisis and its impact on Swedish arts journalism : autonomy loss, a shifting paradigm and a ‘journalistification’ of the profession

Research indicates a crisis in the journalistic field due to economic, technological, institutional and cultural shifts. This seems to have led to a paradigm shift in arts journalism, from a cultural to a journalistic focus, and a loss of autonomy for culture departments in the Swedish press. This article investigates how arts journalists’ professional values are affected by this presumed autonomy loss, the paradigm shift and insecure working conditions due to managerial control and economic pressure. The research material consists of interviews and articles by editors and critics debating their profession. The results show that the ideal-typical values traditionally associated with journalism in Western democratic society are under pressure. This prompts a redefinition of the profession and debate about the future of arts journalism and its threatened role of promoting cultural heritage and participation in an autonomous cultural public sphere.

The Mediatized Zlatan, Made by Sweden

Abstract The present article analyses the mediatization of the brand and celebrity Zlatan Ibrahimović using the reception and marketing of the footballer’s life story and autobiography as its main case. It is shown that the construction of a myth such as Ibrahimović transcends the materiality of the book as well as geographical, vernacular and media boundaries, as it is constituted as content in a digital network that produces signification. This ‘Zlatan content’ is framed by national Swedish values and a traditional Western myth of individual masculine excellence. It is also marked by emotions, class and race, telling a tale about the marginalized emotive immigrant becoming both a national icon and part of an imaginary Western ghetto experience and global literary canon formation. It is argued that the performance of excitable speech acts is crucial in the mediatization and branding of mass market literature and celebrities such as Ibrahimović.

The mediatized Zlatan made by Sweden : The immigrant’s path from provincial Otherness to a Western Literary Space

Abstract The present article analyses the mediatization of the brand and celebrity Zlatan Ibrahimović using the reception and marketing of the footballer’s life story and autobiography as its main case. It is shown that the construction of a myth such as Ibrahimović transcends the materiality of the book as well as geographical, vernacular and media boundaries, as it is constituted as content in a digital network that produces signification. This ‘Zlatan content’ is framed by national Swedish values and a traditional Western myth of individual masculine excellence. It is also marked by emotions, class and race, telling a tale about the marginalized emotive immigrant becoming both a national icon and part of an imaginary Western ghetto experience and global literary canon formation. It is argued that the performance of excitable speech acts is crucial in the mediatization and branding of mass market literature and celebrities such as Ibrahimović.