Passion as profession? Lifestyle journalists between exceptionalism and cruel optimism

This chapter, based on thematic analysis and synthesis of 25 papers and book chapters addressing emotions, affect, or subjectivity in lifestyle and cultural journalism, provides an illustrative review of the body of research on the most frequently discussed emotion-related aspects of lifestyle and cultural journalism: (1) the multifaceted role of lifestyle and cultural journalists’ subjectivity, joy, and passion; (2) their emotional labor; (3) emotional work and affective links between journalists and audiences; and (4) lifestyle journalists’ strategies to reconcile passion with precarity, namely, cruel optimism. This chapter argues that some of these topics epitomize pressing issues and tensions of journalism (research) more broadly. In particular, the role of emotions in journalists’ epistemological practices, the question of how to navigate precarity and emotional wellbeing, and the challenges in digital audience engagement resonate with current research on other journalistic beats. Therefore, lifestyle journalism and the solutions to its inner tensions developed by its practitioners might serve as sources of inspiration for non-lifestyle areas of journalism (research).