This paper to considers some of the systematic problems and constraints faced
by academics teaching and researching in the field of journalism and journalism
studies. To do this, I draw on MacIntyre’s philosophical concept of practice,
applying it to the practice of journalism and the practice of academia, which
I argue here have many commonalities. This conceptualisation of the practical
activities of journalists and academics also takes account of their factual
dependence on institutions. MacIntyre argues that although institutions should be
considered to be necessary, in bureaucratic capitalist social systems they tend to
pursue external goods at the cost of the goods internal to the practice. Practices
thus become corrupted as institutions orient them to the pursuit of external goods.
I argue that both journalists and academics are subject to similar processes of
institutional domination, or colonisation, and that because of this, the capacity
study, teach, and then practice a critical journalism adequate to a properly
democratic community is stymied. The most significant problem on this analysis
is that processes of colonisation are not discrete, they are systematic, extensive
and commonly experienced. Consequently it is inadequate to consider discrete
forms of resistance to these problems and constraints. Instead, I argue, we must
consider common and collective forms of resistance
