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Bourdieu and the media: the promise and limits of field theory

Review of Rodney Benson and Erik Neveu, editors, Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005

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Notes

  1. Nicholas Garnham (1994). Bourdieu, the cultural arbitrary and television. In: Craig Calhoun, Edward Lipuma, & Mosha Postone, (Eds.), Bourdieu: Critical perspectives. Cambridge: Polity, 177–192 at pp. 187–188.

  2. London: Pluto, 1998.

  3. For review, see Rodney Benson (1999). Field theory in comparative context: A new paradigm for media studies. Theory and Society, 28/3, 463–498.

  4. See Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (2005). On the cunning of imperialist reason. In: Loic Wacquant (Ed), Pierre Bourdieu and democratic politics. Cambridge: Polity, 178–198, at p. 179.

  5. Stuart Hall (1977). Culture, media and ‘the ideological effect’. In: James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, & Janet Woolacott, (Eds.), Mass communications and society. London: Edward Arnold, 315–348.

  6. See the essays in Collins, R. et al., (Eds.), Media culture & society: A reader. London: Sage, 1986.

  7. Jürgen Habermas (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge: Polity; Manuel Castells (1996) The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell.

  8. See, for example, Patrick Champagne (2005). ‘Making the people speak’: On the social uses of and reactions to public opinion polls. In: Loic Wacquant (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu and democratic politics. Cambridge: Polity, 111–132, at p. 120.

  9. Jeremy Tunstall (1971). Journalists at Work. London: Constable.

  10. See Craig Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas: The public sphere. Cambridge: Polity, 1992, especially the essays by Schudson and Eley.

  11. See Manuel Castells (1997). The power of identity. Oxford: Blackwell, 312, which denies that media institutions directly influence the social and political processes played out through the media arena.

  12. There is no space to develop this point here, but it can be argued that Actor–Network Theory tells us a lot about how “networks” get established, but much less about how they are dynamically sustained and put to use.

  13. See James Curran, & Jean Seaton (1997) Power without responsibility (5th edition). London: Routledge; Stuart Hall et al. (1978). Policing the crisis. London: Macmillan.

  14. Compare pp. 48–52 of Champagne’s essay, which suggests economic pressures have replaced political pressures in influencing French media.

  15. Faire L’Opinion: Le Nouveau Jeu Politique (1990). Paris: Editions de Minuit, at p. 26, cf. pp. 195, 277.

  16. For a wide-ranging argument, see Luc Boltanski, & Eve Chiapello (2005). The new spirit of capitalism. London: Verso.

  17. See Bernard Lahire (1999). Champ, Hors-champ, Contre-champ. In: Lahire, B. (Ed.), Le Travail Sociologique de Pierre Bourdieu-Dettes et Critiques. Paris: La Découverte/ Poche, 23–58.

  18. See Nick Couldry (2003). Media meta-capital: Extending the range of Bourdieu’s field theory. Theory and Society 32/5–6: 653–677.

  19. At times, authors in this collection seem to make assumptions about the power of media over audiences, for example, when Champagne talks, no doubt plausibly, about the “central symbolic power of television” in social life (p. 54). But these are assumptions that are never specified or justified.

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  1. Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, London, SE14 6NW, UK

    Nick Couldry

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Couldry, N. Bourdieu and the media: the promise and limits of field theory. Theor Soc 36, 209–213 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-007-9027-z

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