DEFEATED PROFESSION, ILLEGITIMATE DISCIPLINE: It is time to understand the journalistic field´s institutionalization

Abstract

The difficulties of theoretical development in Journalism in thespecific academic field (considered as the Journalism discipline,as well as the Communication discipline), and the problems thatthey cause both in the professional and the academic fields´legitimizations, lead to the necessity for an investigation of itssources in the institutionalization of the field. Identifying thatthe dichotomy-based explanations are not enough to enlightenthe issue, nor are the earlier investigations made by me, thispaper has the objective of increasing the knowledge about thehistory of Journalism in the academic field, from the perspectiveof the Sociology of Knowledge. This study analyzes data about thesocial and cognitive institutionalization of the field, its relationto Journalism and the University’s development, within themajor contexts of society and culture. The hypothesis is that theidentification and the description of the frames socially constructedin the institutionalization of the field can help to understand theepistemological difficulties observed in this development