Using Bourdieu in Critical Mediatization Research: Communicational Doxa and Osmotic Pressures in the Field of UN Organizations

Authors

  • André Jansson University of Karlstad

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v31i58.19125

Keywords:

Bourdieu, Mediatization, Doxa, Mobility, Social fields, Symbolic power

Abstract

This article develops a Bourdieusian approach to mediatization. It is argued that the Bourdieusian theories of doxa and fields can make valuable contributions to a critical perspective on mediatization, one that moves beyond the divides between institutionalist, social-constructivist and materialist understandings (e.g., Bourdieu, 1972/1977). Mediatization is here seen as the historically growing dependence on media technologies and institutions within diverse social fields and settings. In order to establish the link between mediatization and Bourdieu’s theories (ibid.), the article introduces the concept of communicational doxa, which refers to the taken for granted communicational conventions and demands that regulate the inclusion of membership within a particular field. The article also shows how communicational doxa can be applied as an analytical concept. Findings from qualitative fieldwork carried out among highly mobile and skilled professionals within the field of UN organizations in Geneva, show how the autonomy of social agents is negotiated in relation to an increasingly mediatized communicational doxa.

Author Biography

André Jansson, University of Karlstad

PhD, Professor

Department of Geography, Media and Communication

Karlstad University, Sweden

References

Amin, A. & Thrift, N. (2007). Cultural-economy and cities, Progress in Human Geography, 31(2), pp. 143-161. Andrejevic, M. (2014). The infinite debt of surveillance in the digital economy. In Jansson, A. & Christensen, M. (Eds.) Media, Surveillance and Identity: Social Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang. Bourdieu, P. (1972/1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1979/1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1996). The State Nobility. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1997/2000). Pascalian Meditations. London: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Couldry, N. (2003a). Media meta-capital: extending the range of Bourdieu's field theory. Theory and Society 32 (5-6), pp. 653-77. Couldry, N. (2003b) Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge. Couldry, N. (2014) Mediatization and the future of field theory. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Couldry, N. & Hepp, A. (2013). Conceptualizing mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments. Communication Theory 13(3), pp. 191-202. Elliott, A. & Urry, J. (2010). Mobile Lives. London, New York: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington, Minneapolis: Indiana University Press. Hartmann, M. (2006). The triple articulation of ICTs: Media as technological objects, symbolic environments and individual texts. In Berker, T. M. Hartmann, Y. Punie & K. J. Ward (Eds.) The Domestication of Media and Technology (pp. 80-102). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Hepp, A. (2012). Mediatization and the ‘moulding force’ of the media. Communications 37(1), pp. 1-28. Hjarvard, S. (2014). Mediatization and cultural and social change: an institutional perspective. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Ihlen, Ø. & Pallas, J. (2014). Mediatization of corporations. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Innis, H. (1951). The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Jansson, A. (forthcoming). The moulding of mediatization: The stratified indispensability of media in close relationships, Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research. Jansson, A. (2014). Indispensible things: On mediatization, space and materiality. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication (Handbook of Communication Sciences, Vol 21). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Jansson, A. (2013a). Mediatization and social space: Reconstructing mediatization for the transmedia age, Communication Theory 23(3), pp. 279-96. Jansson, A. (2013b). A second birth? Cosmopolitan media ethnography and Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(2), pp. 135-50. Jansson, A. (2011). Cosmopolitan capsules: Mediated networking and social control in expatriate spaces. In Christensen, M.; Jansson, A. & Christensen, C. (Eds.) Online Territories: Globalization, Mediated Practice and Social Space. New York: Peter Lang. Kitchin, R. & Dodge, M. (2011). Code/Space: Software and everyday life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krotz, F. (2007). The meta-process of ‘mediatization’ as a conceptual frame. Global Media and Communication 3(3), pp. 256-260. Livingstone, S. (2007). On the material and the symbolic: Silverstone’s double articulation of research traditions in new media studies, New Media and Society 9(1), pp. 16-24. Lundby, K. (2014). Mediatization of Communication. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Lövheim, M. (2014). Mediatization and religion. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Madianou, M. & Miller, D. (2012). Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. London: Routledge. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Moores, S. (2012). Media, Place and Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan. Morley, D. (2009). For a Materialist Non-Media-Centric Media Studies, Television and New Media 10(1), pp. 114-6. Myles, J. F. (2004). From doxa to experience: Issues in Bourdieu’s adoption of Husserlian phenomenology, Theory, Culture and Society 21(2), pp. 91-107. Rawolle, S. & Lingard, B. (2010). The mediatization of the knowledge based economy: An Australian field based account. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research 35(3), pp. 269-86. Rawolle, S. & Lingard, B. (2014). Mediatization and education: A sociological account. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing mediatization as an analytical concept. European Journal of Communication 19 (1), pp. 87-101. Schutz, A. (1962). Collected Papers, Vol 1: The Problem of Social Reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Schutz, A. & Luckmann, T. (1973). The Structures of the Life-World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Silverstone, R. (1994). Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge. Strömbäck, J. & Esser, F. (2014). Mediatization of politics: transforming democracies and reshaping politics. In Lundby, K. (Ed.) Mediatization of Communication: Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Williams, R. (1974). Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London: Fontana.

Downloads

Published

2015-05-13

How to Cite

Jansson, A. (2015). Using Bourdieu in Critical Mediatization Research: Communicational Doxa and Osmotic Pressures in the Field of UN Organizations. MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, 31(58), 13–29. https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v31i58.19125

Issue

Section

Articles: Theme section