ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Why Diversity On Canadian TV Is Superficial

“I don’t think anyone has any idea of the cultural impact that small data set is having on the country as a whole,” says the APTN’s Jones. Coles has some idea. One of the findings that surprised her most was how much an “imagined audience” was used to justify decisions “laced with racism, sexism, homophobia.” - The Walrus

Who Is Diagnosing Where We Are In History Right Now?

It is now more than half a century since the heyday of political modernism and the sociological project that accompanied it. Are we still, today, postmodern? Are we really still grappling with the fallout of 1968? - London Review of Books

Fandom Fueled By Social Media Has Gotten Out Of Hand

Fans are increasingly demanding a return for the precious resource of their attention, their clicks and eyeballs and adulation. We may call celebrities influencers, but we want to influence them too. We are the customers, and our gaze is money. - The New York Times

The Internet Has Turned Us All Into Content Machines

“Clickbait” has long been the term for misleading, shallow online articles that exist only to sell ads. But on today’s Internet the term could describe content across every field, from the unmarked ads on an influencer’s Instagram page to pseudonymous pop music designed to game the Spotify algorithm. - The New Yorker

Arts Organizations Back Away From Global Aspirations

Arts administrators are starting to try to measure things like mental and even physical wellbeing as a gauge of how successful their programs are, and are using terms like "impact framework." The idea, at heart, is that the arts are a means to an end, rather than being an end in themselves. - Axios

Dahlia Lithwick: On Hopefulness In A Broken World

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives." - Slate

Is Social Media Really Making Us Worse?

There’s so much focus on sweeping claims that aren’t actionable, or unfounded claims we can contradict with data, that are crowding out the harms we can demonstrate, and the things we can test, that could make social media better. - The New Yorker

Behold The Modern Literary Festival — What An Uncreative Place!

The growth of British literary festivals over the past few decades has been an exponential development. It has also changed the idea of what people expect from authors. - The Critic

What Corrupts The Visual Art World

Institutional bureaucrats, not billionaires, have the power to constrain the possibilities for aesthetic development in the present. The figure of the contemporary artist we know today is an invention of the bureaucrats. - Tablet

Africa Is Inventing Its Own Streaming Music Model

With 60 million active users, Boomplay is the most popular music streaming service in Africa. Leading the pack, it is one of a bevy of homegrown music streaming and content platforms that are offering alternatives to the on-demand global streaming model. - Global Voices

The “Everything’s Going To Hell But I’m Doing Great” Phenomenon

Though the number of Americans who said that they personally were “doing at least okay” actually rose slightly from 2019 to 2021, their evaluation of the national economy plummeted in that time frame. - The Atlantic

Why, Despite Efforts, Have The Arts Failed To Diversify?

‘In answer to the question, “Who do you make work for?” people will say, “I make work for everyone – for anyone.” But when you say, “Well, what are you doing to ensure that outcome?” the answers start to narrow considerably. - ArtsHub

Do The Arts Have Too Many Managers?

Half of all public and private grants now pay administrators’ salaries – only a quarter fund arts production. Even if many are wonderful, managers are collectively the greatest obstacle to balancing budgets. - The Stage

The Internet Is Broken. Here’s How To Fix It

The root is simple: The internet is broken because the internet is a business. While the issues are various and complex, they are inextricable from the fact that the internet is owned by private firms and is run for profit. - The New York Times

Not Just Top Gun: US Military Has Had Editorial Control Over Thousands Of Movies

The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have exercised direct editorial control over more than 2,500 films and television shows. These discoveries raise questions about the government’s reach at a time when deciphering propaganda from fact has become increasingly difficult. - Los Angeles Times

Will Rogers — A Proudly Indian Actor In John Ford’s Cowboy-Movie America

He was born into the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in 1879; his grandparents had survived the Trail of Tears. "Despite his consistent and very vocal pride about being Indigenous, his image did not fit with the public's assumptions of what a Native American ought to look like." - The Criterion Collection

Imagination Is Critical For Learning. So Why Don’t We Teach It?

Studying the imagination is the most exciting and accurate way to heal the terminal divide between the sciences and the humanities. But, more importantly, Imagination Studies, or imaginology, also promises to reunite the body and the mind, reintegrate emotion and reason. - Aeon

Do The Words We Use Really Change The Way We Think?

John McWhorter: For example, the pathway from “crippled” to “handicapped” to “disabled” to “differently abled.” New words ultimately don’t leave freighted ideas behind; they merely take them on. - The New York Times

Casualty Of War: Russian Artists, Scientists, Creatives, Are Leaving

How low has Putin driven Russian culture? Here are two indications. Thousands of scientists and other intellectuals along with hundreds of ballet dancers and other artists are leaving or trying to leave Russia, ashamed of Putin’s wars and immobilized by his repression. - Hedgehog Review

The Art, And The Power, Of Volodymyr Zelensky’s War Videos

"They serve as field reporting, pleas for weapons, arias that glorify Ukraine. But the videos have done more than win Ukraine moral and military support. They have created a serialized manifesto — one that makes the case for liberal democracy over oligarchic autocracy, ... clarifying, day by day, democracy's reason for being." - Wired
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