“Am I a Journalist?” Lifestyle Journalists’ Discursive Construction of Their Profession Inside, Outside, and Alongside the Journalistic Field

Abstract

Scholarly understanding of what “journalism” is has long been shaped by discourse on what “hard news” or political journalism entails. Less academic attention has been paid to perceived alternative forms of journalism, such as lifestyle journalism. This study aims to investigate how lifestyle journalists construct their professional identity in the context of a grand narrative of journalism that has been dominantly shaped by ideals related to politics, democracy, and the public sphere. Through 31 interviews with Singaporean lifestyle journalists, this study found that lifestyle journalists subscribe to both in-group and out-group discourses, where they simultaneously place themselves within but also outside the boundaries of journalism. However, the lifestyle journalists also articulate an alternative emerging discourse of a standalone-group, where lifestyle journalism should be seen as a profession completely divorced from normative understandings of journalism. This reflects lifestyle journalism’s longstanding—yet perhaps untenable—liminal positioning on the periphery of journalism’s boundaries and provides further support for understanding journalism as a discursively constructed profession that is constantly in flux.

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