Interpretations of the journalistic field: A systematic analysis of how journalism scholarship appropriates Bourdieusian thought

Maares, Phoebe; Hanusch, Folker

doi:10.1177/1464884920959552

Cited by 47 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Bourdieu's work bridges the "dichotomy between structural functionalism and social phenomenology by analyzing society on both the structural and individual level through the interplay of various concepts" (Maares & Hanusch, 2022). Bourdieu's field theory (1993Bourdieu's field theory ( , 1997 comprises several different elements including field, forms of capital, habitus, doxa and illusio.…”

Section: Field Theory In Scandal Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field Theory in the Reporting of a US Religion Scandal

Perreault¹,

Potochnik²,

Swasy³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The scandal story reflects an essential journalistic lens to understand culture–scandals circumscribe attention to the norms, values and expectations of a culture. This study aims to explore the nature of the scandal story through an examination of a case in U.S. journalism: the coverage of the now-disproved “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” This study examines the initial 2012 case of an ancient papyrus scrap alleged to prove that the historical Jesus was married, and that over a period of eight years, was disproved to a complicated backstory of cultural misogyny, academic dishonesty, and a con man. Through the lens of field theory, this study aims to explore how scandal stories help shed a light on how a culture informs a newsroom doxa.

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Section: Field Theory In Scandal Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field Theory in the Reporting of a US Religion Scandal

Perreault¹,

Potochnik²,

Swasy³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Journalism’s independence is one boundary marker, for example, because it has value to the news organization as a sign of credibility (hence a reason to pay for its journalism) but also has value for politicians and commercial organizations for their own personal gain. Scholarship linking boundary work to journalism has increased in the past decade, studying among other things how boundaries adapt to include or exclude nonjournalistic, para-journalistic or quasi-journalistic contributions to the public sphere (Maares & Hanusch, 2022). As a scholarly topic, it stretches back to Schudson (1978) writing about newsworkers’ claims to autonomy.…”

Section: Boundary-keepingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do thought leaders make us think about journalism? A boundary-work analysis of newspaper commentary articles

Duffy

Prahl

Lim

2022

Newspaper Research Journal

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As “boundary objects,” thought-leader articles show some characteristics of journalism but are not considered journalism in its pure sense. Yet this peripheral format occupies a critical place in the media canon and thought-leader articles have value for news organization and audience alike. Given an ongoing demand for content and a declining tendency to pay for it, thought-leader articles have a secure place. But even as they help journalism to overcome one (economic) obstacle, they raise another in the form of questions about their content: Who has a voice? Who is held to account? What agendas are pursued? How are events and topics framed? What are the values of the writer? And who benefits from having a voice, pursuing an agendum and setting the frames of the discussion? When asked of regular reporting, these questions have helped define journalism’s boundaries; when asked of thought-leader articles, the answers similarly reveal what sits inside journalism’s field. This article investigates what thought-leader articles indicate about the boundaries of journalism, through their conformity or otherwise to traditional values and roles.

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“…They observe that: since the early 1990s, field theory has become a key theoretical approach for journalism scholars, starting first with French scholarship (Bourdieu, 1994;Champagne, 2000), followed by English publications (Benson, 1999;Marlière, 1998) and later spurred on through Benson and Neveu's (2005) seminal edited volume. (Maares and Hanusch 2020).…”

Section: Employment and Extension Of Bourdieu's Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The radical ambiguity at the heart of Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of journalism

Harrison

2022

SN Soc Sci

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The influence of media theorist and sociologist of the journalistic field Pierre Bourdieu has been widespread since his death in 2002 yet his relationship with journalism was at best an ambivalent one. On the one hand, he acknowledged journalism’s primary role in shaping public discourse, and his ideas have spurred on journalism researchers and writers. On the other, he authored a best-selling polemic which offered a withering analysis of what he saw as television’s malign influence over not only journalism but cultural production as a whole. Through a close reading of key texts, this paper identifies an underlying ambiguity within Bourdieu’s writings regarding the status and legitimacy of journalism. It argues that this ambiguity produces theoretical effects which work against—or at least outside—the self-declared aims of field theory to provide the tools for an objective critique of journalism by smuggling into the theory terms which are value-laden. Finally, some of the epistemological and ontological grounds on which Bourdieu’s thought has been labelled as reductionist are considered. This fresh perspective helps to re-contextualise Bourdieu’s important contribution to journalism studies.

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Interpretations of the journalistic field: A systematic analysis of how journalism scholarship appropriates Bourdieusian thought

Cited by 47 publications

References 49 publications

Field Theory in the Reporting of a US Religion Scandal

Field Theory in the Reporting of a US Religion Scandal

What do thought leaders make us think about journalism? A boundary-work analysis of newspaper commentary articles

The radical ambiguity at the heart of Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of journalism

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