Is reading about art good for you?

"That's not real journalism." This is a comment that arts journalists are accustomed to hearing, both from other newspaper people and from members of the public. What is usually meant is that what appears on a newspaper's daily arts page is rarely "news", unless you define news to cover the fact that an artist's exhibition is opening or a new opera is being performed. Most arts coverage is a specialised branch of feature-writing. While news reporters face late deadlines (much of this newspaper was written yesterday afternoon or evening, or even early this morning), deadlines for arts features are usually two days before publication. What is also meant by the vaguely dismissive comment is that journalists writing features on the arts don't have to scrabble about for subjects and stories: these are handed to them on a plate, since arts events are happening anyway.

Of course, arts journalism can be as lazy as that: no more than an event-driven extension of the entertainment industry's PR campaigns, functioning as a noticeboard for what's on show.

However, most newspapers with claim to a serious readership now carry extensive, analytical and informative features on artists, on cultural movements and trends, on arts institutions and organisations, on arts politics and policy. It has all come a long way from the tiny, anonymous "notices" (reviews) that used to be squeezed in, depending on the pressure of space - and the news editor's interest in the arts. A newspaper's arts page covers visual arts, theatre, film, dance, music , opera and literature, as well as photography, architecture, design, radio and TV. Journalists who write about the arts are mediating between the artist and the public, informing readers about the background and context of an artist's work, as well as interpreting and evaluating it.

Ideally, journalists have specialised knowledge to bring to this; if they are faced with a subject outside of their area of interest - which can often happen - rapid and intensive reading and research is required, in order at least to appear to have some sort of expertise. All kinds of distinctions are made (not just by journalists) when discussing the arts: between high culture and popular culture, between literature and writing, between commercial cinema and arthouse cinema, between the arts and entertainment, between amateur and professional, between fine arts and applied arts. Newspaper arts coverage can reinforce these distinctions, or it can question them. Ideally, it should stimulate discussion. The ultimate goal is proselytising or educational, in the broadest and most benign sense: to generate interest in the arts, to introduce the reader to forms or subjects with which you are unfamiliar and, most importantly, to enable you to develop confidence in your own views and tastes.

There is a crucial assumption underlying this arts-page "mission" to inform, explain and interpret. The arts are seen to be "a good thing", with an improving or civilising influence. Not everyone would agree with this, of course. The ways in which works of art, and artists, are regarded have varied enormously through different periods in history. At present in Europe, the arts appear to be very highly valued: we build imposing temples to house art and enormous sums of money are paid to possess artworks. Especially in the US and Japan, art collections are used as an advertisement of corporate power. The image of a company can be enhanced by sponsorship of arts events or literary prizes. Art is now regarded as a business asset, like stocks and bonds and property.

Tastes in art change. In our era of mass production, in contrast to earlier periods, we value originality in art very highly. To call a piece of writing derivative or imitative is generally an insult. With this emphasis on individual artistic expression, rather than the upholding of a tradition or the mastery of a received technique, comes our fascination with the individual artist's imagination, with his or her personal biography.

That's where newspapers come in. Interviews with writers, directors, and painters, and the celebrity of the artist, can influence how we judge his or her work. Interviews with arts practitioners set out to satisfy our curiosity about their lives: we want to know what the artist was going through when she wrote a particular work, or whether the main character in his film was based on his estranged wife, mother or granny. We want to be brought into the mysterious alchemy of the creative process.

Some of this urge is derived from the Romantic notion of the artist as tortured genius. The artist's temperament was thought to necessitate lots of suffering and angst-ridden behaviour. We're all familiar with this cliche, through films about Van Gogh, for example. Pop artist Andy Warhol, whose exhibition opens tomorrow at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, played with this myth. In reaction to the idea of the artist being a special, inspired person, is another view, rooted in the 1960s' legacy of personal empowerment: that there is an artist in all of us, that creative activity is good for us, that we all need to express ourselves. Hence the growth in community arts and local writers' groups - and the increased interest in art as a form of therapy.

It's clear that the way we think about art and artists depends on a particular set of economic and social circumstances, and that the present orthodoxy might change. So it's important that arts journalism question the assumptions that underlie the making of art. The value ascribed to the arts cannot be wholly separated from the social groups and institutions that produce and consume it. For example, there is a big difference between a work of art that is made to be exhibited in a museum and one that was originally created for a church or a private patron.

In our art museums, objects are taken out of their original contexts and hung, lit and positioned with reverence. There is an air of solemnity and gravitas about visitors' passage through museums, which was formerly reserved for religious occasions. It's no coincidence that Sunday is peak day for gallery attendance.