Couldry Media Symbolic Power and the Limits of Bourdeaus Field Study

7/21/2019 Couldry Media Symbolic Power and the Limits of Bourdeaus Field Study

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M ED IA@ LSE Electronic W orking Papers

Editors: Dr Rosalind Gill, Dr Andy Pratt, Dr Nick Couldry and Dr Tehri Rantanen

No.2Media, Symbolic Power and the Limits of BourdieusField Theory

Dr Nick Couldry, Lecturer in Media and Communications,

Media@lse, London School of Economics and Political Science


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N ick C ouldry lectures in m edia com m unications and the sociology of culture at the London S chool of Econom ics and

Political Science, w here he is D irector of the M asters in M edia and C om m unications R egulation (and Policy) and (from

Autum n 2003) joint director of a new M asters in C ulture and Society. H e is the author of three books: The Place of

M edia P ow er (R outledge, 2000), Inside culture (Sage, 2000) and M edia R ituals: A C ritical Approach (R outledge, 2003).

C ontact address:

Dr Nick Couldry

M edia@ lse

London School of Econom ics and Political Science

H oughton S treet

L O N D O N

W C 2 A 2A E

U K

Tel: +44 (0)207 955 6243

Em ail: n.couldry@ lse.ac.uk

Published by M edia@ lse, London School of Econom ics and Political Science ("LS E"), H oughton Street, London W C 2A

2AE. The LS E is a School of the U niversity of London. It is a C harity and is incorporated in England as a com pany lim -

ited by guarantee under the C om panies Act (R eg num ber 70527).

C opyright in editorial m atter, LSE 2003

C opyright Paper 2: M edia, sym bolic pow er and the lim its of B ourdieus field theory, N ick C ouldry 2003

ISSN 1474-1946

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MEDIA, SYMBOLIC POWER AND THE LIMITS OFBOURDIEUS FIELD THEORY

Nick Couldry

Abstract

Social theory (even w hen m ost concerned w ith m edia: ideological analysis, postm odern theory, system s

theory) has failed to clarify how m edia affect its key concepts. The best starting-point is a m odified version

of Pierre Bourdieus field theory. W hile analysing m edia production as a particular field (or sub-fields) is

not new , field theory as norm ally practised is less com fortable w ith the idea that m edia representations

im pact on all social space sim ultaneously precisely the issue in understanding m edia pow er. The solution

is to draw on Bourdieus less w ell know n w ork on sym bolic pow er and the states prescriptive authority,

draw ing an analogy betw een contem porary m edias social centrality and Bourdieus account of the French

states m eta-capitalacross and betw een all fields. The resulting em pirical research agenda is outlined

and (in conclusion) a related theoretical issue (how do m edia affect Bourdieus notion of habitus?) is

anticipated, w hich the author intends to treat in a separate article.

Introduction

A s Niklas Luhm anns recently translated book rem inds us (Luhm ann, 2000), m edia raise significant

ontological and epistem ological questions about the nature of the social w orld. H ow should w e

conceptualise the contribution of societys central m edia to social reality and how , in particular, are w e to

m odel the long-term im pacts of the com plex feedback loop they represent? The starting-point for this

article is that none of social theorys obvious candidates for m odelling those processes are radical enough,

but the best w ay forw ard lies in a version (albeit significantly m odified) of Bourdieus theory of the social

w orld. In particular, I w ant to argue that, although Bourdieus theory of fields by itself cannot encom pass

the com plexity of m edia processes (in spite of various suggestions by Bourdieu and others that it m ight),

it can, if m odified in the light of Bourdieus separate theory of the state, be an im portant first step

tow ards that w ider m odel.

W e cannot study m edia in isolation, as if they w ere a detachable part of the w ider social process. The

connections w ork in m ore than one direction. M edia processes are part of the m aterial w orld, yet w e

m ust also capture the force of the m ystifications that m edia generate or, less pejoratively, their

contribution to the social construction of reality(Berger and Luckm ann, 1968). M edia, like the education

system , are both m echanism (of representation) and source (of taken-for-granted fram ew orks for

understanding the reality they represent).

A n influential British and A m erican tradition of m edia sociology has approached the m edias contribution

to social reality through the concept of ideology (for exam ple, H all, 1980; M orley, 1980, 1992; Kellner,


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1995), arguing that the m edia reproduce ideological contents originally generated elsew here

(in essence, a G ram scian m odel of hegem ony, as the m ediator betw een base and superstructure). But the

causal relationship betw een specific m edia contents and peoples beliefs has proved elusive (C ouldry,

2000: 8-10), and in any case such w ork tells us little about the status of m edia institutions them selves in

society, the consequences of that status and how it is sustained.1

Postm odernist social theory (Baudrillard,

1983; Virilio, 1986; com pare Lash, 1990; Baum an, 1992), by contrast, does seek to address the im pacts

of m edia institutions on social structure, but through suggestive pronouncem ents, rather than em pirically

grounded detail. From a third perspective, N iklas Luhm anns (2000) system s m odel of the reality of the

m ass m ediaoffers (in its ow n term s at least) a rigorous account of how the m edia w ork w ithin social

reality, but one w hich excludes discussion of ideological effects in any sense of the term . N ot only is the

truth or falsity of specific m edia representations irrelevant according to Luhm ann (2000: 7, 75), but his

concentration on the broad functional interrelations betw een m edia system and w ider social system

obscures the contingencies underlying the m edia process that are m ost ideological: the tendency for this

type of person or thing, rather than that, to be heard or seen. W hat gets om itted, in other w ords, is

pow er and social differentiation, precisely the dim ension of the m edia process that poses the m ost

interesting and far-reaching causal questions.

W e need a m iddle-range theory of the m edias im pacts on social reality, and the particular pow er of

m edia institutions to constitute, not m erely reflect, our sense of the social w hich and this is the crucial

qualification still addresses the questions of pow er and inequality that m otivated earlier w ork on m edia

ideology. W e need a theory of the concentration of sym bolic pow er in m edia institutions, seen as a

significant dim ension of pow er and m ediated social reality in its ow n right (M elucci, 1996). This is w hat

I shall m ean by an account of m edia pow er, to w hich this article hopes to contribute. Such an account

m ust, how ever, reflect the im portant reconceptualisation of pow er (Foucault, 1979, C allon and Latour,

1981, and A ctor N etw ork Theory generally) as a dispersed, em ergent process, rather than som ething

possessed by a person or institution, and held at a particular place. There is an underlying sense of the

com plexity of social space here that is, in broad term s, com m on to Bourdieus field theory as w ell, the

social theory on w hich m ost of this article w ill focus.

By m ediaI w ill m ean the m edia w hich, until recently, have been assum ed to be societys centralm edia

television, radio and the press that is, our central m eans of access to societys reality and its centre.2

This lim itation is tactical: w e m ust be clear first about how to theorise these m edias centrality, before

approaching the issues relating to specific m edia, for exam ple, the increasingly im portant issue of

w hether new m edia developm ents (particularly the Internet and m edia digitalization) w ill underm ine the

social centrality currently attributed to television, radio and the press (cf N eum an, 1991).


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A lthough the study of m edia in social theory has been a relatively neglected area (excepting Thom pson,

1995), this articles aim of exploring theoretically how to m odel the social im pact of the existence of

m edia institutions (the m ost fundam ental question of m edia effects, as Lazarsfeld and M erton long ago

pointed out: (1969) [1948]) fits w ith w hat Bourdieu called the goal of all sociology: to uncover the m ost

deeply buried structures of the different social w orlds that m ake up the social universe, as w ell as the

m echanism sthat tend to ensure their reproduction or transform ation(1996a: 1). I exam ine here the

lim itations of one candidate for understanding m edia pow er, Bourdieus field theory, w hich claim s that

every social action is understandable only in term s of the field w here it is situated (from w hich a notion

of the journalisticor m edia fieldsprings quite naturally). Although prima faciestraightforw ard, how

can this m odel cope w ith the distinctive am biguity of m edia processes as both localised processes of

production (part of the w ider, structured space of econom ic and cultural production) and the generator

of representations of the social w orld as a w hole (cf D ebord, 1983).

W e encounter here, in a specific form , one difficulty w ith Bourdieus field theory in general: its

concentration on the relationships betw een producers of goods, and its relative neglect of consum ers,

and particularly the relationships betw een producers and consum ers of the sam e goods (cf Fabiani, 1999:

85 on the literary field).3 The w ay forw ard, both for field theory in general and for the analysis of the

m edias social im pacts, lies, I w ill argue, in draw ing on Bourdieus less w ell-know n, and in som e senses

less developed, theory of the w ider social space in w hich fields are situated,4 and the influence on that

space of institutions like the state (Bourdieu, 1996a); there are crucial analogies betw een the French state

(in Bourdieus account) and the m edia in m y account, in term s of the w ay they influence how the social

w orld is categorised. The account offered here rem ains, it is true, at the level of structural exploration,

and avoids one other key dim ension of m edias consequences for social theory m edia representations

w hich w ould require another and quite different article. For now , how ever, given the confusion that an

unm odified field theory generates for an analysis of m edia pow er, som e clearing of the theoretical ground

is in order.


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4

Symbolic Power: From a Weak to a Strong Notion

To get this conceptual exploration under w ay, I w ant to discuss the concept of sym bolic pow er, for tw o

reasons: first, because Bourdieus insistence on a strong notion of sym bolic pow eris a vital aid in

grasping the pervasive nature of m edia institutionssocial im pacts; second, because the very generality

of this strong notion of sym bolic pow er is difficult to reconcile w ith Bourdieus field theory, raising the

potential contradiction explored further below that a Bourdieu-influenced theory of the m edias social

im pacts m ust overcom e.

W hat is the difference betw een a w eak and a strong concept of sym bolic pow er? The w eak concept

m ight be exem plified by John Thom psons w ork (1995). D raw ing on Bourdieu but also M ichael M anns

w ork, Thom psons w ork valuably insists on the sym bolic as an im portant dim ension of pow er alongside

the political and the econom ic. Thom pson defines sym bolic pow eras the capacity to intervene in

the course of events, to influence the actions of others and indeed to create events, by m eans of the

production and transm ission of sym bolic form s(1995: 17). This definition helpfully captures in general

term s the pow er of a num ber of social institutions over sym bolic production: the m edia, the church,

educational institutions. But it is a w eak concept of sym bolic pow er, because it does not allow for the

possibility that certain types of concentration of sym bolic pow er (and I w ill focus here only on

the sym bolic pow er of m edia institutions) require a special analysis. In particular, Thom pson (1995: 269

n8) rules out a possibility, suggested by Bourdieus w ork, that certain form s of sym bolic pow er are

necessarily m isrecognised.

A strong concept of sym bolic pow er, by contrast, suggests that som e concentrations of sym bolic pow er

are so great that they dom inate the w hole social landscape; as a result, they seem so natural that they

are m isrecognised, and their underlying arbitrariness becom es difficult to see. In this w ay, sym bolic pow er

m oves from being a m erely local pow er (the pow er to construct this statem ent, or m ake this w ork of art)

to being a general pow er, w hat Bourdieu once called a pow er of constructing [social] reality(1990a:

166). This strong concept of sym bolic pow er is an im portant them e in Bourdieus w ork, and indeed a

them e that distinguishes him from other m ajor social theorists. But, in its very general scope, it sits oddly

w ith Bourdieus w ell-know n insistence that all his other key sociological concepts (habitus, capital) are

com prehensible only in the context of a specific field: a field of action in w hich particular types of capital

are at stake and particular types of disposition (or habitus) are fitted for success. Thus the concept of

sym bolic capitalin Bourdieu is alm ost alw ays specific and local, m eaning any type of capital (econom ic,

cultural, and so on) that happens to be legitim ated or prestigious in a particular field (1986: 132, 133;

1990a: 230; 1990c: 134-135). M uch less often does Bourdieu refer to sym bolic capital, m ore generally,

as the sym bolic resources for m aking representations or constructions of social reality (1977: 165; 1990c:


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137). A s a result, it is difficult to m ake a link from his field theory to his discussion elsew here of

televisions sym bolic pow er(poids symbolique) (1996b: 58; 1998a: 50) in the strong sense already

noted. But it is just such a strong concept of sym bolic pow er that w e need, in order to grasp the m edias

broader social im pacts.

H ow then can Bourdieus strong concept of sym bolic pow er strong precisely because it recognises the

pervasive im pacts of m edia institutionsproduction of representations on the construction of social reality

tout court be reconciled w ith Bourdieus insistence that his sociological concepts m ake sense only in the

context of specific fields?5


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6

From Journalistic Field to Media Meta-Capital

The only starting-point lies w ithin field theory itself, since there is little doubt that, as a sphere of cultural

production, the m edia can, at leastprima facie, be seen as a single field, or a collection of fields, (each)

w ith a distinctive pattern of prestige and status, its ow n values, and a distinctive and increasingly troubled

relationship to econom ic pressures (com pare Bourdieus w ell-know n concern w ith the relative autonom y

or heteronom y of particular fields vis--vis the econom ic pole).

1. The Media as Field(s)?

Bourdieu him self frequently used the term journalistic field(champ journalistique): this notion dom inates

Bourdieus only tw o published reflections on m edia, the tw o television addresses collected under the title

On Television and Journalism(1998a), w hich have becom e highly controversial in French public life and

in the field of m edia sociology. Som etim es w e also find the term m edia field(champ mdiat ique

)

(Bourdieu, 1996b: 47; cf Cham pagne, 2000). In this field (w hether w e call it journalisticor m edia), like

all others, distinctive form s of capital are at stake. Both Bourdieu and C ham pagne discuss how far success

in that field is increasingly defined by purely econom ic criteria, reducing its relative autonom y. There are

no problem s of principle w ith this notion of the journalistic field, although there are num erous issues

of detail, such as w hether there is one such field or m any, and, if m any, how are they interrelated

(Benson, 1998; C halaby, 1998; M arlire, 1998). A recent issue of Act es de la Recherche en Sciences

Socialesparticularly C ham pagne (2000), Balbastre (2000) and Joinet (2000) provides useful em pirical

explorations of this m odel, although none of its essays interrogated the assum ption that the m edia

process can be fully and satisfactorily theorised as operations w ithin a specialist, if highly influential, field

of production.

Im portant though an understanding of the journalistic fieldin this sense is, it tells us little about m edia

pow er as norm ally understood: that is, the im pact of m edia representations on social reality, including on

the operations w ithin fields other than the m edia field(s). Journalists in their field com pete w ith each

other against the background of m edia pow er (in this broader sense), but their com petition is not aboutthat pow er, the analysis of w hich therefore falls outside the analysis of the journalistic field.

The potential difficulty here is confirm ed w hen w e turn to Bourdieus analysis of one key influence on the

operations of the m edia field(s): the state. Bourdieu (1996a, 1998b) takes over and extends W ebers

notion of the state, conceptualising the state as a m onopoly of legitim ate physical and sym bolic violence.

In this context he is required to m ake an im portant distinction: betw een (a) the level at w hich the states

ow n pow er (its sym bolic pow er) is established and (b) the field in w hich agents (civil servants, politicians,

and all those passing through the lite schools w hich, under the French system , control access to state

positions) com pete for the m onopoly over the advantages attached to [the states] m onopoly(1998b:


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58-59). This distinction sounds som ething like the one w e have just m ade concerning the journalistic field

and m edia pow er. C an w e draw a parallel distinction betw een (c) the level at w hich the m edias sym bolic

pow er (m edia pow er) is established and (d) the field(s) in w hich agents (journalists, regular m edia

perform ers, and m any others) com pete for the benefits that derive from , or are indirectly associated w ith,

m edia pow er? If so, then w e have discovered (in (c)) a dim ension to m edia w hich is not, and cannot be,

encapsulated w ithin the operations of a m edia field of production, and yet one inextricably tied to the

m edias pow er to represent the w orld.

In an early lecture on sym bolic pow er(1990a: ch. 7 [originally published 1977]) Bourdieu used the term

sym bolic system to describe both the university system and m uch earlier religious system s w hich each

had authority to classify social space as a w hole, over and above the details of particular fields. Bourdieu,

in his account of the state, talks sim ilarly about the field of pow erfocussed on the state (1996a: 264;

1998b: 42). But w e can ask here: is fieldthe right term for the space in w hich a pow er such as the states

em erges? A field is a specific delim ited space w here agents com pete for certain specific types of capital.

But the state (at least on Bourdieus account) does not com pete for it already has preem inence over -

the definitions, for exam ple, of legal and educational status (Bourdieu, 1998b: 40-45; cf 1990a: 239-

241); and the states influence as a reference-point in social life w orks not in one field only, but across all

fields (Bourdieu, 1990a: 229). The states field of pow eris not therefore, I suggest, a field in Bourdieus

norm al sense. Rather it is a general space w here the state acts upon the interrelations betw een all specific

fields (in the usual sense),6 indeed, w e m ight say, acts upon social space in general.

H aving pushed the argum ent this far (using Bourdieus ow n account of the state), it is only a sm all step

to suggest that fieldis not the right term to characterise the level at w hich m edia pow er (as opposed

to the detailed operations of the journalistic field) operates and is established. M edia pow er requires us

to think about a society-w ide dom inance w hich the term fielddoes not capture. I turn later to address

how m ore precisely this dom inance can be form ulated w ithin Bourdieus social theory, draw ing again on

his analysis of the state, but for now it is w orth em phasising that all this is quite consistent w ith retaining

the notion of the m edia field(s) (including the journalistic field) as sub-spaces w ithin the w ider social space

of cultural production; indeed, as w e see below , an im portant dim ension of m edia pow er cannot be

understood w ithout retaining that aspect of Bourdieus social theory.

2. Specific Problem Cases for a Field Theory of Media

To bring out the im portance of this issue, I w ant to m ention som e cases w here holding fast to field theory

as the exclusive fram ew ork of explanation creates som ething like an im passe in Bourdieus account of the

m edia and those of his follow ers.


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First, if w e turn to Bourdieus only explicit treatm ent of the m edia (1998a), there is not so m uch an

im passe as a lacuna in the theoretical m odel w ith w hich he appears to operate. This book has been

heavily criticised for som e of its m ore sw eeping generalisations about the w ay m edia represent the social

w orld (their trivialisationof it) and its assum ption that the im pacts on peoples experience and their

potential for critical aw areness are equally sw eeping, and dam aging. Since, as already explained, I am not

looking to discuss the issue of m edia contents in this article, these criticism s are not relevant to m y

argum ent. M ore im portant is the gap, now here filled, betw een Bourdieus detailed discussion of how the

m edia field(s) operate as fields of production, on the one hand, and his reference to the special sym bolic

pow erof television, on the other. The interrelations betw een m edia fields are, Bourdieu argues quite

plausibly, undergoing m ajor change: television journalism is becom ing increasingly influential in setting

the agenda for the w hole journalistic field and, because of the increasing econom ic pressures on

television journalism (analysed m ainly in term s of corporate influence over journalistsagendas, but the

point could be m ade m ore subtly in term s of declining journalistic resources)7 the w hole journalistic field

is becom ing m ore susceptible to econom ic pressures. In turn, as protagonists in m any non-m edia fields

increasingly w ant m edia representation in order to further their success in those other fields (because of

the m edias general pow er to define w hat m attersin society), the factors structuring m edia field(s) are

increasingly influencing the w hole space of cultural production (including, m ost controversially for m any

of Bourdieus readers, the field of academ ic production).

Stripped of som e of its m ore incautious com m ents, this is, I w ould argue, a pow erful, if shorthand,

account of som e of the w ays in w hich the m edia are affecting the social w orld. W hile the details of its

account of the internal dynam ics of the m edia field(s) can no doubt be debated (M arlire, 1998), its

linking of m edia to the transform ed internal dynam ics of all fields of cultural production is very

provocative. M y concern here is that Bourdieus claim is theoretically underdeveloped. It depends on a

notion that televisions sym bolic pow ersom ehow influences w hat actors in particular non-m edia fields

do (because they think m edia attention helps them com pete against their fellow academ ics, artists,

cooks, and so on). I think Bourdieu is right to see m edias influence w orking in this w ay across all fields,

but now here does he integrate this type of effect into his w ider social theory. There is a lacuna betw een

Bourdieus fieldtheory Bourdieu that w orks to explain the details of m edia production (and w ho can

object to Bourdieus insistence on theory that w orks closely w ith grounded em pirical detail?) and his

w ider conceptual fram ew ork; nothing in other w ords is there to underw rite the intuitive leap he w ants

to m ake to capture the m edias influence on social space as a w hole.

The sam e problem em erges m ore explicitly, not as lacuna but as genuine im passe, in the w ork of the one

colleague of Bourdieu w ho has specialised in m edia analysis: Patrick C ham pagne. C ham pagne in his book

Faire LOpinion(1990) attem pts to analyse the m edias im pacts on contem porary politics entirely through


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an account of the com plex operations of the journalistic field. The journalistic field has a relationship w ith

the political field so close that Cham pagne is tem pted to refer to it as a journalistic-political fieldor

space(1990: 261, 277). (Bourdieu is m ore cautious, saying sim ply that the journalistic field m ay in a

certain w aybe seen as part of the political field (Bourdieu, 1998a: 76).) That relationship, argues

C ham pagne, has transform ed the definition of politics (1990: 264), but not for the good. The political

field has becom e increasingly insulated from external influences and conflicts (i.e. from those that

politicians are m eant to represent). By a circular logic(1990: 39), both journalists and politicians react

to a version of public opinion w hich they have largely constructed, through the fram ing of questions for

opinion polls, the reported reactions to those pollsresults, and through the influence of journalists

accounts of politics. (This is very sim ilar to the notion of spin, that, rightly or w rongly, is so controversial

at present in British politics.) The sam e circular logic constrains those outside the political hierarchy w ho

m ight otherw ise break through it; follow ing Baudrillard (1981) but w ith m uch greater sociological

authority, C ham pagne (1990: 204-222) argues that dem onstrations are often created for the m edia, as

a m eans of com m unicating through, and therefore on the term s of, the m edia (1990: 232).

O nce again, there is m uch that is interesting here, but m y concern is w ith its theoretical coherence. First,

there is som ething like a theoretical sleight of hand in the idea that the previously separate journalistic

and political fields have m erged. This enables Cham pagne to talk of the influence of journalists

definitions of eventson politiciansdefinitions of events, w ithout needing to address a crucial difficulty:

that Bourdieus field theory, by itself, has no w ay of accounting for how representations m ade by actors

in one field can influence the actions and thoughts of across in another field. Elsew here, C ham pagne

attem pts to harness the question of m edia influence on non-m edia actors back into field theory by

claim ing that peoples ability to w ork w ith the m edia som ehow reflects a m ysterious interrelationship

betw een the w orkings of the m edia field and the w orkings of the quite different fields in w hich those

actors are players:

Everything happens as if the journalistic event w as a transposed form , in the relatively autonom ous

logic of the journalistic field, of the econom ic, institutional, cultural or sym bolic capital w hich socialgroups [w anting to be represented in the m edia] have at their disposal [i.e. for application in their ow n

fields]. (C ham pagne, 1990: 239)8

But this account obscures m ore than it clarifies. M ost interestingly, C ham pagne introduces the notion of

a new specific type of capital m edia capital(capital m diatique) (1990: 237, 243) to capture peoples

relative ability to influence journalistic events based on the capital they have already acquired elsew here

(1990: 239). But there is only the briefest explanation of this new term ,9 even though it im plies an effect

(of capital acquired for use in one field on actions in another) that field theory cannot easily encom pass.


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C ham pagnes em pirical point is that people, through their sense of w hat perform ances, or im ages, w ork

in the m edia and their ow n capacity to deliver them , are increasingly draw n into, and influenced by, the

specific constraints of the journalistic field: different social groups, taking account of their ow n m edia

capital, conform m ore or less rapidly to this [m edia] space and to its specific profits(C ham pagne, 1990:

243-44). W hat is needed, how ever, to provide som e theoretical coherence, is a m odel that (a) allow s for

the fact that one field (m edia field) can influence the w orkings of another (the political field), perhaps

even (although this is speculative and controversial) to the extent of inducing the other to m erge w ith it;

and (b) show s the m echanism s (by definition, not specific to either of those individual fields) through

w hich that influence can occur. It is interesting that even one of the m ost sophisticated recent exponents

of Bourdieus field theory for m edia analysis, Rodney Benson, is also draw n to a sim ilar problem w hen he

claim s that journalism is a crucial m ediator am ong all fields(Benson, 1998: 471) but, no m ore than

C ham pagne or Bourdieu, does he integrate this into the overall field theory.

There is an underlying problem here, not soluble w ithin a theory of fields (and therefore not soluble using

Bourdieus w ell-know n range of sociological concepts, provided they are regarded as tied to a specific

field context): the problem of how to account for the dynam ic interrelationships betw een fields across

social space. If the representations of the social w orld produced by actors in one field (m edia) influence

the actions of actors in another field (for exam ple, politics), or (perhaps less problem atic) the capital

acquired by actors in one field (the political field) influences actions of those in another (the m edia field),10

such influences particularly the form er cannot be explained in term s of the capital or habitus obtaining

in the second field. W hich invites us to break Bourdieus prohibition, and argue that both capitaland

habitusare usable as concepts (and partly determ ined as qualities) outside the context of specific fields

of action. The concept of habitus deserves a separate article, but I now w ant to turn to how , in

accordance w ith som e clues provided in Bourdieus treatm ent of the state, w e can think about the

external influences on w hat counts as capital in a particular field.11 This has m ajor im plications for the

scope of field theory, and enables us to find a w ay beyond its im passes in the m edia case.

3. The Medias Meta-Capital

There is an issue, as C raig C alhoun pointed out in a very perceptive discussion (1995: 139), of how to

understand the increasing convertibilityof different types of capital across the w hole range of fields.

Interestingly, this w as an issue addressed by Bourdieu him self in his less w ell-know n w ork on the state

(on the im portance of w hich I have touched in 1. above); it w as also, w e saw , raised im plicitly in

Bourdieus and C ham pagnes separate accounts of television.


13/2711

In his late 1980s and early 1990s w ork (sum m arised in Bourdieu, 1996a) in the no the French states

increasing influence over the educational field (and through that the key entry-points into all or m ost

fields of pow er in France), Bourdieu addressed a pow er that w as not lim ited to any specific field, yet

indirectly influenced the term s of play in all of them . The idea of such a w ider form of pow er w as a

consistent, if relatively m inor, them e in his w ork throughout his career. It goes back to his Durkheim ian

notion that religious institutions exercise a m onopoly of the legitim ate exercise of the pow er to m odify

. . . the practice and w orld-view of lay people(Bourdieu, 1987: 126); it pervades his w hole sociology of

education (and rem em ber how at the beginning ofThe State Nobilit yhe reem phasises that the sociology

of education [lies] at the foundation of a general anthropology of pow er and legitim acy(1996a: 5)); it is

present also in his interesting essays on rites of institutionand sym bolic pow er(1990a); and then, m ost

explicitly, it is central to his w ork on the state. W hat is m ost striking, how ever, is that Bourdieu never

connected in any form al, developed w ay this broad notion of (effectively) sym bolic pow erin the strong

sense to his com m ents on the m edia; on the contrary, the m edia are entirely absent from his w ork until

On Television and Journalism, w here there is no link back to his theory of religion or the state. O nce again,

a lacuna or at least an issue that needs to be pursued.

In the discussions that form Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Bourdieu w as asked w hether the state is a

sort of m eta-field(Bourdieu and W acquant, 1992: 111). H is answ er strikingly used the notion not of

field, but of capital:

The concentration of . . . different types of capital goes hand in hand w ith the rise and consolidation

of the various fields [i.e. the specific fields w hich historically have contributed to the pow er of the

state]. The result of this process is the em ergence of a specific capital, properly statist capital, born of

their cum ulation, w hich allow s the state to w ield a pow er over the different fields and over the various

form s of capital that circulate in them . This kind of m eta-capital capable of exercising a pow er over

other species of pow er, and particularly over their rate of exchange . . . defines the specific pow er of

the state. It follow s that the constitution of the state goes hand in hand w ith the constitution of the

field of pow er understood as the space of play in w hich holders of various form s of capital struggle in

particular for pow er over the state, that is, over the states capital over the different species of capital

and over their reproduction (via the school system in particular). (Bourdieu and W acquant, 1992: 114-115, added em phasis)

I have already queried the consistency of this field of pow erw ith Bourdieus norm al concept of field. But

that does not underm ine the usefulness of the notion of m eta-capitalthat Bourdieu introduces, for this

new concept differs from capitalin Bourdieus norm al usage, precisely in functioning not by reference to

a particular field (contrast Bourdieu and W acquant, 1992: 101), but over and above specific fields. The

state acts directly on the infrastructure of all fields: it is the site of struggles, w hose stake is the setting of

the rules that govern the different social gam es (fields) and in particular, the rules of reproduction of those

gam es(Bourdieu in W acquant, 1993a: 42). This w orks through the states influence on the hierarchical


14/27

12

relationship or exchange rate(1996a: 265) betw een the fundam ental types of capital at stake in each

individual field (for exam ple, econom ic versus cultural capital) (in W acquant, 1993a: 23).

For the first tim e, Bourdieu introduces a concept for grasping how the w orkings of all fields can be

changed by w hat goes on elsew here, that is, in w hat w e m ust im agine as an overarching space based in

the states central role in the social infrastructure. This pow er of the state is, crucially, not derived from

the w orkings of any specific field, even if it is quite possible to think of the im m ediate space of

com petition betw een civil servants as a fieldin its ow n right.

Sim ilarly, I w ant to suggest, w e should understand m edia pow er as a form of m eta-capitalw hich enables

the m edia to exercise pow er over other form s of pow er. This gives clearer theoretical shape to Bourdieus

ow n m ost interesting insights about the m edia. W hen Bourdieu discusses the increasing pressure of

television on, say, the academ ic field (1998a), there is of course a direct econom ic dim ension (a large

television audience m eans m ore books sold), but television exerts also, he suggests, an indirect pressure

by distorting the capitalproperly at stake in the academ ic field, creating a new group of academ ics

w hose sym bolic capital w ithin the academ ic field rests partly on their appearances on television, thereby

distorting the academ ic fields position relative to other fields, including the m edia field and (because of

its influence on the m edia field) the econom ic field.

M ore general issues are also at stake here about the im pact of m edia on the exchange ratebetw een

the capital com peted for in different fields, and therefore on the relationship betw een the various fields

in social space. N one of this, how ever, is inconsistent w ith Bourdieus point that capital is only realised by

agents in specific fields (Bourdieu and W acquant, 1992: 98). For that reason, it is not surprising that the

sym bolic capital (am ong chefs) that com es from being a successful television chef is unlikely to be

convertible into sym bolic capital in a very different field, such as the academ ic field, since the form er

need not involve few , if any, of the specific attributes valued by m edia in representatives of the latter. O n

the other hand, the relationship betw een the m edia production field itself and all other fields is

transform ed, because being a player in the form er brings w ith it (or at least has a significant chance of

bringing w ith it) influence over the term s on w hich people can acquire sym bolic capital in a range of other

fields, from politics to the visual arts to cookery to sport to gardening. In this w ay, m edia pow ercan be

seen to operate in a differentiated, quite concrete, but at the sam e tim e increasingly pervasive, w ay across

social space.

Every day the m edia sustain their status as the legitim ate controller of access to public existence (cf

C ouldry, 2000: chapter 3), not just for politicians but for m any other types of social actor. By so doing,

they m aintain the value of their m eta-capitalover the various fields w here those actors operate. W hen

the m edia intensively cover an area of life for the first tim e (as in the past decade in the fields of gardening


15/2713

or cooking), they alter the internal w orkings of that sub-field and, at the sam e tim e, both increase both

the am bit of the m edias m eta-capital across the social terrain and further legitim ate the long-term

concentration of sym bolic pow er in the m edia. This, I suggest, is one im portant w ay in w hich over tim e

m edia institutions have com e to benefit from a truly dom inant concentration of sym bolic pow er (sym bolic

pow er in the strong sense of a pow er over the construction of social reality) not through fiat, but

through the increasingly com plex interconnections betw een a m ass of specialist fields and a central

m edia field.


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14

Ways forward for Empirical Research

This article has proceeded by w ay of theoretical discussion, aim ing to clarify how , and to w hat extent,

Bourdieus existing field theory can be m odified so as to capture at least one w ay in w hich m edia pow er

m ight w ork. Theory, of course, has no independent value, unless it can be confirm ed by, and m ade to

w ork effectively w ithin, detailed em pirical research; how ever, the picture so far has sought to build on

other aspects of Bourdieus social theory and (as its im plicit support) som e recent m edia theory (for the

general argum ent on m edias sym bolic pow er developed here, cf C ouldry, 2000, especially chapters 1 and

3, w hich in turn draw s on its ow n body of em pirical research). M y justification for not offering the results

of new em pirical research in this article is that, as argued earlier, the em pirical w ork done on m edia using

Bourdieus social theory (i.e. using field theory) involves deep-seated problem s hence the need to adjust

the theory before proceeding to further em pirical w ork. In this section, how ever, I w ant to review som e

key directions for em pirical w ork im plied by m y theoretical argum ent, linking w here possible to research

already done on the m edias social im pacts.

If the m odification of Bourdieus field theory proposed here is accepted, then at least one dim ension of

m edia pow er (not the only one: see conclusion) can be m apped very effectively through studying in detail

how the m edias m eta-capital is, or is not, progressively altering the operating conditions in a range of

individual fields of production. This can be broken dow n into a num ber of specific questions to be asked

of particular fields and sub-fields:

1. Is m edia exposure regarded as a significant, or even a predom inant, form of sym bolic capital in

that field? (C learly, for every (sub-)field there are detailed questions about w hat sort of m edia exposure

counts there, and these are answ erable only in term s of the categorisations operating in that

(sub-)field, but the im portance of the general question rem ains.)

2. If the answ er to (1) is yes, to w hat extent is this fact changing that fields relationship to other fields

w here m edia exposure is also regarded as a significant com ponent of sym bolic capital, by allow ing

successful players in the form er to exchange their success there for sym bolic capital in the latter? (In

other w ords, to w hat extent is the m edias m eta-capital increasing the convertibility of m edia-related

sym bolic capital across the w hole space of fields: in one earlier exam ple of interrelations betw een the

sub-fields of cooking and academ ic production, I em phasised that w e cannot assum e this, but it

rem ains an issue to be explored em pirically m ore on this below .)

3. If (1) and (2) are accepted as im portant questions, then it becom es increasingly urgent to ask w hat

now are the conditions of entry into the m edia field itself (and all its sub-fields), and how are those

conditions changing as m edia capital(in cham pagnes term ) is being held increasingly w idely across

the w hole range of fields?


17/2715

In effect, (3) continues the field-based research into m edia production already undertaken under

Bourdieus aegis (see above) and encom passes questions about the changing external influences,

especially econom ic pressures, on the m edia field. O nly (1) and (2) are new areas that arise from the

theoretical argum ent m ade above. They in turn raise a further im portant issue for social theory: w ill the

increasing influence of m edia over w hat counts as sym bolic capital across all fields lead, in the longer-

term , to the increasing convertibility of sym bolic capital derived from m edia exposure or m edia access

across social space as a w hole? If so, it w ould be w orth exploring w hether a new form of capital (a

specialised form of sym bolic capital, that w e m ight, follow ing C ham pagne, call m edia capital) is

beginning to em erge. U pperm ost here w ould be the sense of capital as a facilitator of exchange or

m ediationbetw een fields, rather than an asset for use in a particular field (C alhoun, 1995: 155; 1994:

69). W e m ight, in the long term , see m edia capitalin its ow n right as a new fundam ental species of

capital, in Bourdieus phrase, that w orks as a trum p cardin all fields (Bourdieu and W acquant, 1992:

98) just as econom ic capital is, and for the sam e reason: because of its high degree of exchangeability

or liquidity (Lash, 1994: 201, discussing Bourdieu, 1990c: 92-93) even if the m eans by w hich m edia

capitalcould be accum ulated or exchanged w ould distinguish it sharply from econom ic capital. For now ,

this m ust rem ain speculative, but it suggests one further w ay in w hich m edia analysis m ay in the future

require revisions to general social theory.

This agenda of em pirical research intersects w ith existing w ork on the m edias on particular fields. The idea

that the political field is being transform ed fundam entally by politiciansneed for m edia exposure has been

fam iliar for som e tim e, w hich does not m ean that its w orkings dont require a considerable am ount of

unpicking (Street, 2001, chapter 9; M eyer, 2002; Scam m ell,1995). Bourdieus ow n strictures on televisions

distortion of the proper values of the academ ic field (Bourdieu, 1998a) (self-serving or brave, depending

on your view point) offer at least a provocation to serious em pirical research in that area: how is sym bolic

capital in the academ ic field being changed through m edia? Ironically, this is an area w here few academ ics,

barring Bourdieu him self w ith the form idable store of sym bolic capital he com m anded as Professor of

Sociology at the C ollge de France, have dared to tread. A n interesting area is the visual arts, w here (as

Julian Stallabrass (2000) has argued) m edia exposure has increasingly becom e the stuff of artistic success,

even as (at the sam e tim e) it has been the subject of artistic reflection, as in the w ork of Tracey Em in and

G avin Turk to nam e just tw o U K artists. Particularly difficult, if potentially also the m ost far-reaching in its

consequences, w ould be research on the econom ic field: to w hat extent is m edia exposure becom ing not

only a sign of prestige am ong business players, but an asset that can be directly converted into econom ic

capital? In lim ited form s such as starsor brands, this has of course long been the case and under quite

specific and w ell-know n term s of production (Rojek, 2001), but there is a m ore general question about

how far the possibility or likelihood of m edia exposure as a token for anticipated econom ic success m akes

som ething like m edia capitalincreasingly integral to business at all levels.


18/27

16

Inevitably, m ore w ork is required to m ake these field-specific research questions m ore concrete, especially

in the last, econom ic, case. H ow ever, a further broader question is im plied w ithin them . Since, as

Bourdieu alw ays insisted, field analysis involves not just the study of abstract structures but the m icro-

details of action and thought in specific locales (w hat Bourdieu called the production of belief, 1986),

none of this em pirical w ork can get far w ithout a great deal of attention to how players in fields think

about the m edia and the m edias relevance to w hat they do. W e need to study the categories through

w hich an increasingly pervasive m ediatization12 of public and private life m ay be becom ing norm alised,

even legitim ated. H ere our consideration of the m edias social effects inevitably spills out beyond the

contexts of specific fields, since (as Bernard Lahire (1999) has persuasively argued) there is a large portion

of social space that does not belong to any field. This is a point I w ant to pursue briefly in m y conclusion.


19/2717

Conclusion

O ne of the boldest and m ost sw eeping rem arks in O n Television and Journalism is the follow ing:

O ne thing leads to another, and, ultim ately television, w hich claim s to record reality, creates it instead.

W e are getting closer and closer to the point w here the social w orld is prim arily described and in a

sense prescribed by television. (1998a: 22, cf C ham pagne, 1999)

The French version is m ore vivid:

On va de plus en plus vers des univers ou le monde social est dcrit -prescrit par la tlvision. La

tlvision devien t l arb it re de l accs l existence sociale et po lit ique. (1996b: 21)

The hybrid w ord dcrit -prescrit captures, if only polem ically, the naturalising effect of an institutional

sector w hich generates the very categories through w hich the social w orld is perceived: this, of course,

is a classic D urkheim ian point. It is true of course that (as Bourdieu argued forcibly elsew here) the state,

not the m edia, acts as the form al reference-point for m any categories of social existence: academ ic

qualification, w orking status, m arried status, adulthood, corporate existence, trading licences (Bourdieu,

1990a: 239-40). Indeed the state in m any territories still has direct influence on the econom ic term s under

w hich the m edia them selves operate (the m ost obvious exam ple, paradoxically, being the state-

authorised m edia deregulations from 1990s onw ards). But how , on the other hand, do w e take account

of the m edias ow n role in constructing the social landscape w ithin w hich politicians (the agents of thestate) understand the w orld? A nd how do w e assess the fact that m edia fictions are increasingly part of

the public space in w hich politicians think they m ust intervene on behalf of the state (Fiske, 1996;

H am burger, 2000)?

There is a m ajor question, in other w ords, about the long-term im pacts of the representations of the

social w orld that m edia institutions circulate. In m y introduction, I insisted that I w ould bracket this issue,

because it can only be properly addressed by rethinking (but certainly not replacing) Bourdieus m ost

fundam ental sociological concept, the habitus: in m ediated societies can Bourdieus original

understanding of the habitus as m echanism still hold? Bourdieus sociology of education studied how in

m odern differentiated societies habitus cam e to be influenced not by traditional structures such as the

organisation of dom estic space (Bourdieu, 1990b), but by a separate institutional sector (schools) w hose

shaping, in turn, by the state w as developed in later w ork (Bourdieu, 1996a). A parallel question arises

for m edia in all contem porary societies: how significant is the influence of m edia institutions on habitus,

and how can w e understand that influence? W e saw earlier the dangers of reifying field theory as the

only context for studying capital, and the sam e point applies to habitus. Since m edia precisely have


20/27

18

effects across the w hole of social space at once, any account of the long-term im pacts of m edia

representations on the form ation of habitusin contem porary societies m ust surely take us beyond the

context of specific fields.

To develop that argum ent w ould require (at least) a further article. Instead let m e close w ith a final

question that suggests how the theoretical position argued for here m ight be refined further. In the

quotation just given, Bourdieu w rites alm ost as if the state (about w hose prescriptive pow ers over social

and political reality he had w ritten so eloquently in The State Nobilit y) did not exist. A re w e to assum e

that television is sim ply part of the state? C learly not, since the increasing im pact of broad m arket

pressures on the w hole television sub-field is part of Bourdieus argum ent. If so, how are w e to

understand the relationship betw een the m eta-capitalof the state and the m eta-capitalof m edia

institutions (and through the latter, corporate authority)? This is an issue that, like all the others raised in

this article, needs to be considered on a global, com parative basis. Bourdieu provides no answ er, and

indeed no answ er is possible until m uch m ore em pirical w ork of the sort just outlined on the w orkings

of the m edias m eta-capital has been done. N ote how ever that such a question could not even have been

form ulated if m edia analysis w ere confined to operations w ithin specific fields of m edia production. To

this extent, at least, this article has helped open up som e new questions about how to theorise the

m edias im pacts on the social w orld.

Acknowledgements

M any thanks to Jason Toynbee and Keith N egus for their helpful criticism s of an earlier article that

presented a m uch earlier version of the argum ent here, and to C aroline Bassett, Eric M aigret and A gnes

Rocam ora, for helpful discussions on related them es.


21/2719

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Notes

1 For an exception see H all (1973)

2 C f C ouldry (2002, chapters 3 and 4).

3 A com plication is that Bourdieu argues that, for exam ple in the artistic field, it is the objective structure of the field of production that

gives rise to categories of perception w hich structure the perception and appreciation of its products, presum ably by consum ers as w ell

as producers (1986: 148). I do not find this plausible, but, as explained shortly, I w ould in any case like to defer the issue of m edia

consum ption raised here to a separate article, as it raises quite a different set of issues.

4 In this w ay, the approach offered here avoids the pow erful attack by Bernard Lahire (1999) on Bourdieus field theory as a partial theory

of certain special form s of production that has been falsely generalised to social space as a w hole.

5 For a good discussion of the deeper roots of Bourdieus notion of fields of action in the legacy of Durkheim and W eber, see Lahire

(1999: 24-32).

6

Cf Bourdieus ow n com m ent (in W acquant, 1993a: 21). He also refers to the field of pow er there as a system of positions(20) betw eenholders of different types of capital.

7 See for exam ple Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen (1998).

8 There is a sim ilar attem pt at field-based explanation in Cham pagnes contribution to The Weight of the World(Bourdieu, 1999: 55)

9 Un capital de m obilisation et de sym pathie parfois patiem m ent accum ul, (C ham pagne, 1900: 246)

10 I say perhaps less problem aticsince the very idea of capital(certainly econom ic or cultural capital) im plies som e transferability across

fields. the questions, in a sense, are: (a) does this transferability extend to sym bolic capitalof the sortprima faciederiving from the

m edia process and (b) (regardless of (b)) does the transferability of econom ic and cultural capital explain the types of cross-field effects

Cham pagne w ants to explain?

11 As Fabiani (1999: 87-91) points out, Bourdieu does have a range of m echanism s for explaining som e such external influences (for

exam ple, the changing population of the field), but they are long-term historical factors and none of them w ould cover the type of direct

influence I am discussing here.

12 Rojek (2001) and cf for the m edias ritual categoriesCouldry (2002).


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