The New Lexicon I.
Philosophy of Music Journalism [research group]
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WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
The title The New Lexicon names the need to reconsider the vocabularies through which music journalism describes, interprets, evaluates, and legitimates musical culture. Terms such as review, criticism, objectivity, opinion, fact, expertise, taste, genre, scene, canon, context, originality, authenticity, relevance, independence, audience, and public remain central to journalistic discourse. Yet their meanings cannot be assumed to be stable, self-evident, or universally adequate.
These terms have histories. They emerged within particular media systems, aesthetic traditions, professional norms, technologies, markets, and relations of authority. They enable certain distinctions while obscuring others, and may clarify one practice while misrepresenting another. New publication forms, participatory cultures, platform distribution, audiovisual criticism, independent newsletters, data-led storytelling, and machine-generated text continually test their explanatory power. Practices organised around collective authorship, hybrid genres, community knowledge, algorithmic mediation, or contested archives may require existing concepts to be revised or supplemented.
A new lexicon does not mean replacing one vocabulary with another definitive system. The task is to examine what existing words permit journalists and readers to perceive, which assumptions they carry, where they generate confusion or exclusion, and where new distinctions become necessary.
Lexical inquiry is inseparable from practice. To name a sound, scene, identity, or relation differently may be to hear, organise, and value it differently. Distinguishing description from explanation, access from understanding, visibility from recognition, opinion from judgement, promotion from advocacy, or audience from public can alter the questions asked, sources consulted, forms chosen, and responsibilities acknowledged. Conversely, journalistic encounters may disclose phenomena for which no adequate term exists.
The programme therefore treats vocabulary as a site of collective research. Participants will identify key terms within their practices, trace their assumptions, compare their uses across editorial and musical contexts, and formulate alternatives where necessary. The objective is not universal agreement, but conceptual precision without erasing stylistic, cultural, or political plurality. A productive lexicon should make disagreement more intelligible, not eliminate it.
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RESEARCH PREMISE
WHY THE NEW LEXICON?
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
WORKING METHOD
PARTICIPANT VALUE
WHO THE PROGRAMME ADDRESSES
TOWARDS MULTIPLE PHILOSOPHIES OF MUSIC JOURNALISM
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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