The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Journalism [research group]
—
RESEARCH PREMISE
The New Lexicon proceeds from the premise that music journalism is never philosophically neutral. Decisions concerning which music deserves attention, how an event is described, what counts as evidence, whose testimony is trusted, which categories organise interpretation, where authority is located, how judgement is expressed, and which publics are addressed do more than determine a journalistic work’s style or effectiveness. Whether explicit or tacit, such decisions entail commitments concerning ontology, knowledge, aesthetics, subjectivity, responsibility, history, and the conditions under which music becomes publicly intelligible.
A review may treat a performance as the imperfect realisation of a stable work, or approach it as an event whose meaning arises from bodies, acoustics, technologies, institutions, and listeners. A profile may locate musical agency in an individual creator, distribute it among collaborators and infrastructures, or question whether singular authorship adequately describes the practice. A scene report may present a genre as a coherent identity, a contested social category, a market label, a historical formation, or a provisional alliance. Each orientation carries philosophical consequences, even where those consequences remain unstated.
The residency therefore approaches music journalism as an intellectual, cultural, and public practice in which concepts of music, work, event, genre, authorship, originality, expertise, taste, evidence, objectivity, relevance, community, and value are actively produced, negotiated, and contested. Philosophy is understood neither as an external framework imposed upon journalism nor as commentary added after publication. It is approached as immanent to journalistic activity: a means of making assumptions legible, clarifying concepts enacted through editorial and rhetorical decisions, and examining the historical, institutional, technological, economic, and political conditions through which those decisions acquire consequence.
This does not imply that every article must illustrate a philosophical thesis or that situated listening must be translated into academic argument. The programme asks what forms of thought become possible through journalistic procedures themselves. Description can reorganise attention. An interview can expose conflicting models of authorship. A review can test criteria of value in public. A profile can reveal how biography, labour, institution, and myth converge around an artistic identity. A podcast can make tone, duration, hesitation, and disagreement part of an argument. An editorial sequence can construct relations that no single article could establish.
Music journalism is consequently treated not only as discourse about musical culture, but also as one of the practices through which that culture is constituted. Journalism selects, frames, names, compares, contextualises, archives, legitimates, and neglects. It can make an artist or scene perceptible, reinforce inherited hierarchies, create historical narratives, establish terms of evaluation, or transform how listeners recognise their experiences. Its influence does not depend solely on explicit judgement: choices of subject, placement, headline, image, length, timing, format, and circulation distribute attention and authority.
The programme investigates the reciprocal relation between philosophy and music journalism. It asks not only how philosophy may interpret journalistic texts, but also how journalism may operate as conceptual, critical, and public inquiry. The central question is therefore not simply, “What does this music mean?” It is also: “What does this account make audible, thinkable, and valuable, for whom, and by what means?”
Such inquiry demands attention to both journalistic works and the conditions enabling them. Claims, metaphors, narrative structures, sources, and modes of address cannot be separated from commissions, editors, deadlines, fees, access arrangements, publicity systems, ownership, audience metrics, search engines, recommendation systems, social platforms, and archives. These conditions authorise certain voices, reward particular modes of attention, marginalise others, and shape what can be recognised as musical significance.
The New Lexicon treats this expanded field not as a reason to dissolve music journalism’s specificity, but as a means of describing it more adequately. Journalism remains a situated practice of listening, researching, selecting, interpreting, composing, and addressing a public. Yet its identity cannot be secured by one medium, institution, rhetorical form, or ideal of objectivity. Philosophy of music journalism becomes necessary where inherited definitions cease to account for the plurality and consequence of contemporary practice.
DATES
MENTORS
PROGRAMME FORMAT
RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF MUSIC JOURNALISM
APPLICATION
APPLICATION FORM AND
PARTICIPATION FEES
The New Lexicon program is produced by .abeceda Institute
.abeceda [Institute for Research in Art, Critical Thought and Philosophy], a public-benefit NGO and non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing contemporary artistic practices and critical inquiry. Through its innovative programmes, .abeceda has gained international recognition as one of the leading platforms for contemporary music and artistic research in the Adriatic region and across Europe: www.abeceda.io