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diacritical

Douglas McLennan's blog

diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing.

So the models we have been using to support culture have to change.

This blog will look at the changing dynamics of culture, exploring the relationships between consumers, critics, arts journalists, news media, cultural organizations and artists.

Historically, it is at periods of cultural upheaval that critics have had their most influence. What seems different this time is that many of our traditional critics themselves have been swept away in the change. As our access to culture grows, we’re increasingly going to need help sorting through the masses of culture now available to us.

Why “diacritical?” From Wikipedia:

“A diacritical mark or diacritic, sometimes called an accent mark, is a mark added to a letter to alter a word’s pronunciation (ie. vowel marks) or to distinguish between similar words. The word derives from the Greek word διακριτικός (diakritikos, distinguishing). Note that diacritic is a noun and diacritical is the corresponding adjective.”

I think that the kinds of changes in our culture happening now are not fundamental to our values. I don’t believe our longstanding values are being transformed by technology. Rather, the communications revolution allows us to more efficiently express and reassert those values. Focusing only on the new tools of that expression is, then, to misunderstand what’s going on. Perhaps it’s an artificial conceit, but I think we’re in more of a diacritical moment.

Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

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Recent Comments

  • Margy Waller on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “THIS x — I’ve been wanting this so much. We need a think tank — or a think tank with…” Sep 10, 12:28
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “William, Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm?…” Sep 2, 07:52
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm? It’s…” Sep 1, 06:13
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “I agree with Douglas that public arts funding is too politically fraught in the United States to grow it to…” Aug 31, 11:55
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “About “static models.” Private funding systems are sometimes promoted exactly because they are thought to be more flexible than public…” Aug 30, 15:56
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas comments that our current private funding model “no longer works as it was intended, so we need to rethink.”…” Aug 30, 15:18
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Franklin – thanks for this. Very useful. A few things – your example of the movies – the creative side…” Aug 30, 12:28
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Earl: This is a whole different topic of course, but one I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I…” Aug 30, 08:41
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Sorry, “in conjunction with one another” in the first paragraph, and not really influence peddling in the last one, but…” Aug 30, 04:25
  • Earl G. Blackburn on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas, I can’t thank you enough for this post. I’ve been working on a new model of executing management for…” Aug 29, 21:46

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An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea
  • Five Things to Fix in the Arts
  • How Technology is Shaping Opera
  • Parlez-Vous Screen? (online arts and other considerations)
  • Arts: Rebuild What? And Why?

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