“It’s a bit like pick and choose”: How young media users assign authority to cultural mediators

As the boundaries between producers and consumers in both journalism and cultural industries continue to blur, questions arise about the changing gatekeeping and interpretational roles. The study examines how young adults assign authority to cultural mediators, ranging from traditional cultural journalists to social media personalities, when selecting and evaluating cultural goods. The aim is to understand how journalistic and non-journalistic voices intertwine in young adults’ cultural news consumption. The study builds on 31 in-depth interviews with young Belgian adults (age 18–28) focussing on participants’ social media use in relation to their cultural interests. Paradoxically, in an era of information overload where professional selection and interpretation could prove beneficial, the study identified various reasons why young media users favor non-journalistic mediators, such as their search for similarity. The findings also show how young adults resist journalistic curation to secure their own autonomy and uniqueness as cultural consumers. Nevertheless, journalistic mediators still gain credibility when evaluating cultural goods. The results highlight how young adults assign varying levels of authority to different guides at different stages in cultural consumption. The paper reflects on the implications for cultural journalism, emphasizing the evaluative rather than agenda-setting role of journalists.