Journalism as a field of discursive production – performativity, form and style

Mateus, Samuel

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/3800

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
Journalism as a field of discursive production.pdf		2.1 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Mateus, Samuel

Abstract(s)

By focusing on the emergence and development of journalistic conventions and professional routines it is possible to understand the prominent role of journalism in the social construction of meaning. In this article, we theoretically examine journal ism as a special field of discursive production. The field of journalism presents more than the facts it gathers and reports. The institutionalized retelling of events is a very distinct way to put meaning on them. We suggest journalism is a historically and culturally bounded discourse whose performative nature is at the core of its moral authority and social credibility. In addition, the performative discourse of journal ism invites us to extend the concept to include, for example, the conventions of style and form. The historical transformations journalism took may, thus, be looked at as efforts in the battle for performative discourse involved in the process of a mimetic (re)construction of the social world.