Finding the Field in the Flow: An Information Network Analysis of News Websites in the U.S. and U.K. Media Systems

• In Event: The Study of Journalism as a Field: Capturing a Moving Target

Abstract

This paper develops and implements a recursive method of network analysis that can complement field theory’s focus on studying structured and structuring relationships between actors within relatively autonomous fields (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Beginning with top-level site domains, hyperlinks are discovered and crawled within and across U.S. and U.K. fields of journalism. The resulting information network maps, or “graphs” reveal persistent national differentiations in an era in which boundaries are tested by seemingly easy information flows. This site-focused method is contrasted with a content-focused method developed and implemented by Benkler et al. (2013) that found a relatively unbounded and robust Internet public sphere in which “attention backbone” sites amplified content produced by smaller sites. By building a network graph on what content flows through, rather than on the content itself, the site-focused approach to information network analysis reveals differentiations that offer a foothold for field analysis.

Author

• Tim Neff, New York U