ABSTRACT
A recurring issue in academia as well as in the public debate is who qualifies as cultural critics or opinion makers in the public realm. The Huffington Post headline “The Death of Criticism or Everyone is a Critic” (November 14, 2011) encapsulates the current two-sided debate, often leaning towards the critical side as exemplified by doomsday headlines such as The Observer’s “Is the Age of the Critic Over?” (January 30, 2011). In “A Critic’s Manifesto”, published in The New Yorker (August 28, 2012), writer and critic Daniel Mendelsohn presented the equation “KNOWLEDGE + TASTE = MEANINGFUL JUDGEMENT” as the essence of cultural criticism, arguing that not everyone is or can be a critic “because very few people have the rare combination of qualities that make a good critic”. Good criticism, in his view, includes the capability “to mediate intelligently and stylishly between a work and its audience; to educate and edify in an engaging and, preferably, entertaining way”. These examples concern the more overarching issue addressed in this article of the authority and legitimacy of the cultural critic becoming increasingly heterogeneous in contemporary, Western media culture, and in cultural journalism more specifically.
