Enter Culture, Exit Arts?
Proposal review
The Transformation of Cultural Hierarchies in European Newspaper Culture Sections, 1960–2010
Author(s)
Purhonen, Semi
Heikkilä, Riie
Hazir, Irmak Karademir
Lauronen, Tina
Fernández Rodríguez, Carlos
Gronow, Jukka
Language
EnglishAbstract
Key debates of contemporary cultural sociology – the rise of the ‘cultural omnivore’, the fate of classical ‘highbrow’ culture, the popularization, commercialization and globalization of culture – deal with temporal changes. Yet, systematic research about these processes is scarce due to the lack of suitable longitudinal data. This book explores these questions through the lens of a crucial institution of cultural mediation – the culture sections in quality European newspapers – from 1960 to 2010. Starting from the framework of cultural stratification and employing systematic content analysis both quantitative and qualitative of more than 13,000 newspaper articles, Enter Culture, Exit Arts? presents a synthetic yet empirically rich and detailed account of cultural transformation in Europe over the last five decades. It shows how classifications and hierarchies of culture have changed in course of the process towards increased cultural heterogeneity. Furthermore, it conceptualizes the key trends of rising popular culture and declining highbrow arts as two simultaneous processes: the one of legitimization of popular culture and the other of popularization of traditional legitimate culture, both important for the loosening of the boundary between ‘highbrow’ and ‘popular’. Through careful comparative analysis and illustrative snapshots into the specific socio-historical contexts in which the newspapers and their representations of culture are embedded – in Finland, France, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK – the book reveals the key patterns and diversity of European variations in the transformation of cultural hierarchies since the 1960s. The book is a collective endeavour of a large-scale international research project active between 2013 and 2018.
Keywords
Helsingin Sanomat; Dagens Nyheter; Chicago Transit Authority; Pop Rock Music; Highbrow Arts; Domestic Cultural Products; Van Venrooij; UK Competitor; Cultural Coverage; Vice Versa; West Germany; Music Coverage; Pop Stars; Highbrow Culture; Media System Model; Spanish Language; Cultural Journalists; Cultural Journalism; Article Types; Lennon’s Murder; Sartre’s Death; Common Language; Lennon’s Death; Established Art Forms; Culture SectionsDOI
10.4324/9781315183404ISBN
9781351728041, 9781351728027, 9781315183404, 9781138740556, 9781351728034, 9780367665319, 9781351728041OCN
1055160530Publisher
Taylor & FrancisPublisher website
https://taylorandfrancis.com/Publication date and place
Oxford, 2018Imprint
RoutledgeSeries
CRESC,Classification
Sociology
History
Cultural studies
Media studies
News media and journalism
Politics and government
Anthropology