On Theorizing the Group in Journalism

• In Event: Journalism and Sociology: Comparative Epistemologies, Boundaries, and Ways of Knowing the World

Abstract

Where is the sociological theory behind journalism’s predilection for collective behavior? Though many scholars have invested efforts in thinking about the tendency toward pack journalism in the news media, sociology has not been at the forefront of its theorization. Borrowing in different degrees from sociology, loose notions of ideology, authority, interpretive community, group speak, shared mindsets and boundary work have all been invoked to account for the ways in which journalists mirror each other, but the primacy of the collective and its relationship with the individual have never quite occupied the foreground of either expectations of the news or of journalism’s study. Is journalism a group phenomenon first and foremost? And if so, how might more fully privileging its centrality help explain journalism’s response to current political developments?

Author

• Barbie Zelizer, U of Pennsylvania