Bourdieu And The Journalistic Field

In his short book On Television, Bourdieu provided a powerful critique of the "journalistic field," but what exactly does he mean by this? How does the journalistic field serve to refract external economic and political pressures? And what kind of autonomy can, or should, journalists expect to maintain? Such questions are taken up in case studies of such diverse phenomena as media coverage of the AIDS-contaminated blood scandal in France, U.S. youth media activism, and political interview shows on both sides of the Atlantic. Chapters by both American and French scholars also demonstrate methods for measuring field autonomy and spatially mapping journalistic fields, or discuss the similarities and differences between field theory, new institutionalism, hegemony, and differentiation theory. Rejecting all forms of dogmatism, the authors in this volume demonstrate why field theory remains a "work in progress," and indeed, a research paradigm whose promise has only begun to be tapped. The book includes a previously unpublished text by Pierre Bourdieu on "Fields of Journalism, Social Science and Politics" and contributions from Rodney Benson, Patrick Champagne, Eric Darras, Julien Duval, Daniel Hallin, Eric Klinenberg, Dominique Marchetti, Erik Neveu, and Michael Schudson. Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field will be an invaluable read for all those interested in media and cultural studies, communication studies, sociology or journalism.

Rodney Benson teaches at New York University.


Erik Neveu is affiliated with the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Rennes.