Nete Nørgaard Kristensen

LIFESTYLE JOURNALISM: Blurring boundaries

The article argues that, in contemporary journalism, the boundaries between lifestyle journalism and cultural journalism are blurring. The discussions of the article are based in comprehensive empirical studies, more specifically a content analysis of the coverage of lifestyle, culture and consumption in the Danish printed press during the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first; and secondly, interviews with Danish cultural journalists and editors. The studies reveal that the coverage of lifestyle is expanding and that culture, lifestyle and consumption are today contiguous—sometimes even inseparable—subject matters, which even for journalists are difficult to separate. The findings are interpreted in the light of especially Janssons approach to mediatization of consumption as an expression of more general socio- and media cultural transformations of society.

AMATEUR SOURCES BREAKING THE NEWS, METASOURCES AUTHORIZING THE NEWS OF GADDAFI’S DEATH

This article takes its point of departure in the thesis that today’s global, digitalized and convergent media environment has promoted new patterns of information gathering and dissemination within journalism, and war journalism in particular, which involve changing forms and various degrees of interplay between elite and non-elite sources as well as media professionals and amateur sources. On account of their proximity to unfolding events, amateur sources often break the news by means of raw and fragmented bits of visual and verbal information. Elite sources rarely possess the same exclusive access to information from war zones, but are instead brought in to comment on, validate and grant legitimacy to amateur sources as a form of explicit source criticism that we would like to term metasourcing. This new pattern of information gathering and sourcing within war reporting manifests itself most clearly in cases of major international news events, which render visible the multitude of sources and the speed of information production and distribution. A recent example is the capture and subsequent death of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. Based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of the sources included by selected newspapers to report on this event, the current article investigates the following research questions: Which types of sources are brought into play in the news coverage of Gaddafi’s death, and which forms of interplay between sources in today’s globalized and convergent media landscape are indicated by this case?

Danish media at war: The Danish media coverage of the invasion of Iraq in 2003

This article focuses on the relationship between the media and the state in Denmark before and during the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. The media–state relationship in time of crisis and war is central to the discussion of the media’s watchdog role in a democratic society. So far, studies of the war in Iraq have focused primarily on the media–state relationship in an American or British context; fewer have focused on the smaller countries that were also part of the coalition. This article explores an often neglected aspect of the media–state relationship: what are the different historical contexts for the media–state relationship in countries such as Denmark, the USA and Great Britain, and do historical differences in this relationship reflect the Danish media’s coverage of the war in Iraq when viewed through the lens of Robinson’s (2001) policy–media interaction model. A content analysis of 2045 news items produced by the Danish news media before and during the first weeks of the Iraq war in 2003 shows that there are clear differences, but also clear similarities, between Danish, British and American news coverage of the invasion. Like most of the international media, the Danish media took as their clear thematic focus the reporting of military strategy and battles, and were too reliant on sources within the national government (politicians as well as civil servants), the coalition and the military. Nevertheless, they were critical of the invasion in two ways: 1) there was a supplementary strong thematic focus on the many negative social and psychological consequences of the war, and 2) significant use was made of sources that possibly represented alternative angles on the war, including Iraqi civilians and the media’s own representatives. This analysis points to a paradox in the Danish coverage of the war: on the one hand, there appears to have been an intention to report on the war independently of official (political and military) versions of events; but on the other, the opportunity, willingness and ability to actually do this appear to have been lacking. Journalism

From Ivory Tower to Cross-Media Personas

This article introduces a theoretical typology of four rival yet converging ideal types of cultural critics in contemporary media culture and in cultural journalism, more specifically, encapsulated by the term the heterogeneous cultural critic and characterized by different kinds of authority and expertise: (1) the intellectual cultural critic, who is closely connected to an aesthetic tradition, bohemia and/or academia, or institutionalized cultural capital; (2) the professional cultural journalist, who is first and foremost embedded in a media professional logic; (3) the media-made arbiter of taste, whose authority is closely linked to practical experience with cultural production and repeated charismatic media performances; and (4) the everyday amateur expert, who offers subjective opinions and represents experience-based cultural taste. The aim is to provide an analytical minimum model for future empirical studies by outlining the contours of the multiple, objective and subjective, professional and non-professional cultural “authorities” of contemporary media culture.

When media of a small nation argue for war

In this comparative analysis of editorial columns in Danish newspapers, we analyze how news media can act as a political voice during times of war. Whereas most studies of media coverage of war focus on one specific war, this analysis provides empirically and theoretically grounded conclusions across three wars: Afghanistan 2001–, Iraq 2003–2007, and Libya 2011. The analysis focuses on the interpretative frames that are mobilized concerning the cause of conflict, the legitimacy of war, and the rationales for deploying Danish troops. Various models of elite–media relationships are considered and modified from a theoretical perspective in order to take into account the particular problems involved for a small nation going to war. The analysis largely confirms the influence of elite consensus or dissensus on media coverage. Other influential factors include the media system and the semi-autonomous status of newspapers as an elite voice competing with other opinion-making elites.

Cultural Journalism and Cultural Critique in a changing Media Landscape

This special issue addresses a topic of journalism studies that has previously been somewhat neglected but which has gained increasing scholarly attention since the mid-2000s: the coverage and evaluation of art and culture, or what we term “cultural journalism and cultural critique.” In this introduction, we highlight three issues that serve to frame the study of cultural journalism and cultural critique more generally and the eight articles of this special issue more specifically: (1) the constant challenge of demarcating cultural journalism and cultural critique, including the interrelations of “journalism” and “critique”; (2) the dialectic of globalisation’s cultural homogenisation, on the one hand, and the specificity of local/national cultures, on the other; and (3) the digital media landscape seen in terms of the need to rethink, perhaps even redefine cultural journalism and cultural critique.

Nice to Have – or Need to Have?

Abstract The present article argues that despite the considerable development and expansion of strategic communication as both an academic field and professional practice during the 20th century, strategic communication continues to have an ambiguous status in academia as well as professionally. The article argues for two related explanations of this ambiguity: 1) a communication-internal perspective concerning the interdisciplinary, practice-based and semi-professional nature of strategic communication, and 2) a communication-external perspective concerning the integration of and priority given to strategic communication in organizations. Both aspects constantly challenge the effectiveness, position and power of communication employees, making it necessary for them to continuously prove their worth – in relation to other professionals, in times of crisis, etc. Strategic communication in the Danish public sector is included as an empirical example, as communication practitioners, especially in this context, seem to be faced with professional challenges not least related to the organizational (external) setting, but also based on the (internal) nature of strategic communication.

The cultural journalist around the globe: A comparative study of characteristics, role perceptions, and perceived influences:

This article presents a global-comparative study of journalists reporting about art and culture, that is, cultural journalists. In the literature, this particular group is said to be different from other types of journalists, because their professional work is guided more by an aesthetic logic than a news logic. Until now, however, this difference has mainly been studied in national contexts. Applying a global-comparative perspective by using data from The Worlds of Journalism Study, this article shows that cultural journalists around the globe do in fact differ systematically from other types of journalists in their social and professional characteristics, and also in terms of perceptions of influences on daily work and professional role perceptions. Even though media systemic contexts play a role, cultural journalists do have distinct characteristics worldwide. This is the first study to apply such a global-comparative perspective to the role perceptions of this particular group of journalists.

Rethinking Constructive Journalism by Means of Service Journalism

This article argues that constructive journalism scholarship should look to service journalism and its subfields, cultural journalism and lifestyle journalism, to understand the key characteristics of this newer type of journalism. Though constructive journalism is typically associated with the reporting of political and social issues, it is also seen to challenge the traditional ways of writing about such hard news topics due to its positive and solution-oriented approach. In this respect, constructive journalism seems to reuse some of the approaches known from service journalism, especially in terms of audience address and an expanded social role for journalists. However, service journalism emerged in the increasingly commercialized and globalized media landscape of the post-World War II period, whereas constructive journalism has emerged in the digital media landscape of the 2010s. These historical contexts provide particular circumstances for both types of journalism.

Cultural Mediators Seduced by Mad Men: How Cultural Journalists Legitimized a Quality TV Series in the Nordic Region

Based on theories about the role of cultural mediators in cultural production and using the TV series Mad Men as a case, this article investigates how cultural journalists in the Nordic countries have contributed to legitimizing “quality TV series” as a worthy field of aesthetic consumption. Key analytical points are as follows: (1) cultural journalists legitimize Mad Men’s quality by addressing aspects internal (aesthetic markers) and aspects external (culture industry markers) to the series, as well as the series’ broader social and historical anchoring; (2) Nordic cultural journalists position themselves positively toward the TV series based on their professional expertise and their personal taste preferences and predilections; (3) these legitimation processes take place across journalistic genres, pointing to the importance not only of TV criticism, epitomized by the review, but of cultural journalism more broadly in constructing affirmative attitudes toward popular culture phenomena such as TV series.