The journalistic profession has never gone as far as taking on a corporate structure, but it has a functionalist vision of itself. Ruellan details the forms which this takes (social image of mediation, myth of the press card, jealously reserved sphere of competence etc.), and which shield what he moreover qualifies as a « productive haze ». The social heterogeneousness of the journalistic milieu and the multiplicity of pratices attest to a kind of vagueness which, far from resulting from misunderstanding, defines an indiscernible social group and a dual professional identity - the pursuit of social respectability and the lack of definition of its characteristics.

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Scholarly research on journalistic identity revolves around three axes: its historical dimension, its collective dimension, and the materiality of its workplace and work conditions. To study what constitutes identity in the present one must fully grasp its history. To analyze identity also means to study structures of domination, tension, and socialization affecting both the professional group and individuals, and to grasp how these individuals are acted upon by—and act within—society at large. The diversity within the group of actors who produce news must also be examined. One must understand the history of the group; its collective and organizational dimension; how relationships with “the other” are managed; and the production and dissemination of discourse by journalism, on journalism, and on journalists (whether produced by the journalists themselves or not). This plurality of perspectives—of ways of looking at journalistic identities—reveals its inherent heterogeneity, and polysemous and transdisciplinary nature.