Is Journalism a Transnational Field? Asymmetrical Relations and Symbolic Domination in Online News

Abstract

Are all transnational exchanges ‘fielded’? This article explores the limits of the concept of transnational field by focusing on the case of journalism. At first glance, journalism might seem to be the perfect example of a transnational field. The frequency, speed and extent of international exchanges between media outlets has increased dramatically with the development of online news, leading media scholars to develop the concept of ‘global news’. Yet I argue that such international exchanges do not necessarily constitute a field. Using ethnographic methods, I analyse the circulation of online news between the United States and France, two countries with strikingly different journalistic traditions. Specifically, I compare two editorial partnerships between US and French websites, one linking prestigious online magazines across the Atlantic and the other connecting tabloid-oriented news sites. I find that editorial content does not circulate seamlessly between the two countries. Based on this study, the article proposes three criteria that must be met for transnational fields to exist: competition over the legitimate definition of the field, reciprocal field effects, and the existence of common stakes. More broadly, the article contributes to defining the limits of the concept of ‘transnational field’ for the study of international exchanges.