Cultural critics as moral reputational entrepreneurs: Controversy, metaethical discourse, and authority in the documentary field

Abstract

Many cultural production fields engage with questions around the ethics of representation: how should a story be told? I argue that when covering controversial cultural products, cultural critics engage in metaethical discourse about the right way to “do” ethics in the greater cultural production field they are covering. Using the documentary field as a case study, I conducted a discourse analysis of 228 publications written by cultural critics in response to nine controversial documentaries. I demonstrate how cultural critics frame representational transgressions as moral controversies, identifying four types of moral controversy and four types of metaethical discourse commonly invoked by critics. This metaethical discourse signals different sources of authority within the documentary field. I argue that through their coverage of controversy, cultural critics play a key role as moral reputational entrepreneurs, signaling what types of representational transgressions are elevated to moral controversies, as well as uplifting both established and alternative sources of authority in the field.