Östgöta Correspondenten is the latest in a line of local newspapers that have closed down their cultural editorial office. Last year, the four Bonnie-owned Hälsingetidningar did the same when the then culture editor retired. And in October this year, the Norwegian Dagbladet announced that the newspaper will continue without a culture editor.
There is also a risk that the trend will continue, according to Anna Roosvall, professor of media and communication science at Stockholm University.
“Because it happens in several Nordic countries and because there are several cases in Sweden, it looks like an increasing trend, which we can hope gives rise to a debate that puts an end to it,” she says.
“More pluralistic”
Together with researchers Kristina Riegert and Andreas Widholm, Anna Roosvall has shown in the book “Kulturjournalistikens världar” how cultural editorial offices have shrunk and merged over the years. Digitization and a greater focus on rapid reporting also means that the distinctive features of cultural journalism are at risk of blurring: because it is not just “news about culture”.
In her research, Anna Roosvall has shown that cultural journalism creates a broader understanding of social phenomena, for example after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen in 2015. While news journalism primarily described events, the debate took place on the culture pages, and there were other tendencies than on the editorial and opinion pages.
— On the one hand, there were more historical and philosophical contexts, on the other hand a very lively language. It was also about it being less polarizing and a bit more pluralistic on the cultural pages. They used very many different contexts, cultural but also many geographical ones – it was a big world that came to light, says Anna Roosvall.
She points out that “pure cultural material” such as reviews also play an important role alongside the cultural debate. The different parts cross-fertilize each other.
— It creates a political-cultural public which is important for understanding society.
Like social media
The culture writer Gunilla Kindstrand, who has previously been head of culture at the large conglomerate Mittmedia, knows how tough it is for local newspapers – and because culture is often organized by itself, it is also unfortunately easy to cut into, she says.
She compares it to the old liberal ideals where the local newspaper’s culture pages had an obvious and strong civic value – and emphasizes that a skilled culture writer invites his readers to a deeper way of looking at and participating in society.
But the fact that editors no longer value cultural material as highly is also due to the fact that the view of readers has changed, she believes.
— In the past, there was an idea that a reader could be surprised and take part in material that he or she did not know he or she was interested in. Today, the audience is addressed more predictably and affirmatively. It has been assigned a role that increasingly resembles the “follower” of social media.
Stefan Jonsson, author and professor of ethnicity at Linköping University, sees the same tendencies and believes that it is short-term to sacrifice the cultural material.
— In cultural journalism, we get what rises out of the news flow and put it all together into a coherent and meaningful picture. Meaning, debate, discussions, new arguments, but also new visions and new ideas are created there, he says, and on the contrary calls for more initiated and knowledgeable voices.
“Decreased understanding”
The development of cultural journalism goes hand in hand with a reduced understanding of the importance of culture in society as a whole, claims Stefan Jonsson, who has written the book “The unbridled beauty” about precisely the fundamental importance of culture.
— 200 years ago, discussions about art, literature and debate of ideas have been a cornerstone of democratic society, he says and adds:
— If the media is not interested in it, it indicates a blogification – that we believe we can understand society by having an ongoing blog report as if everything were a single ongoing accident.