This dissertation centers on the Spanish-American modernista movement and its relationship with textual production, journalism, and literary culture in Spanish America as expressed through the crónica genre. Focusing on a diverse group of journalistic texts written by modernista writers Rubén Darío, José Martí, Amado Nervo, Enrique Gómez Carrillo and José Juan Tablada found in newspapers and magazines across Spanish America and Spain between 1880 and 1930, I explore how the crónica and its production and proliferation may suggest a more revolutionary shift in the relationship between literature and society in Spanish America than has been understood thus far. In the space of newspapers and magazines, crónicas entered into dialogue, often explicitly, not only with a broad readership, but also with such elements of modern life as advertising, consumer goods, and fashion. In this study, I explore the tensions and contradictions between the artistic aims of the movement and its participation in a rapidly emerging commercialized mass media. I argue that modernistas used the crónica to form and disseminate modernismo, creating a rather vast reading public for their work. They also incorporated formal and stylistic features into their journalistic texts that affirm their desire for literary autonomy. Modernistas used the tension between their identities as artists and their work in the public sphere to their advantage as they secured their position in the literary field through their aesthetic intentions and production of "high" literature. Their literary identities were also reconfirmed by opening themselves up to the greater public through mass produced journalistic publications. By defining modernismo through themes of textual repetition, material culture of books and periodicals, and the centrality of journalism in the literary production of the movement, I show that modernista aesthetics are in constant flux as they intersect with the experience of Spanish-American modernity at the turn of the 20^th century.