Writing of Culture

Abstract: Covering cultural criticism, prescription, recommendation, guide, promotion, intermediation and so on, cultural journalism carries in its trail a large number of concepts that may be closely related, but imply different approaches and uses. However, it remains to identify, list and analyse them. The aim is to examine the specific editorial practices of this type of journalism in media companies and cultural institutions. How does cultural journalism stand out from a discursive, semantic and morphological point of view? In a context of digital transition and the increasing ease with which non-specialist individuals can express themselves, how is cultural critique assumed and transformed? Are the critics’ commitment and involvement in public arenas a way of perpetuating their usefulness as prescribers? These are some of the questions that this thematic Issue, like the text that introduces it, attempts to answer from both an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. Several lines of inquiry follow: the legitimising effects of cultural journalism for “niches” in cultural production, the links or even collusion between cultural journalism and institutional production, and finally the politicisation of cultural journalism and its interweaving with the mediatisation of international conflicts.