Trabalho jornalístico e mundialização

Problemas teórico-metodológicos

Abstract

Should not the degree to which field theory is cognizant of the particularities of the constitution of the professional habitus of journalists in specific national contexts lead us to acknowledge the impossibility of international comparisons or suggest specific methods for achieving them? To reflect on this question, this paper focuses on comparative studies of the profession of journalists that have proliferated over the last decade. Since the foundational work of Hallin and Mancini in 2004 that analysed the models of media systems in 18 countries, and their self-critical review in 2012, various approaches have sprung up in international research. The Worlds of Journalism and Journalistic Role Performance around the Globe projects (still in progress) have followed the threads of David Weaver’s pioneer study in an attempt to compare, respectively, the different professional cultures and the relational modes between practices and roles which govern the action of journalists. Such strategies spring from similar principles: in general, researchers develop standard ideal-types of journalism (models) based on a functionalist conception of comparative research. By critiquing the limits of these studies from the immediacy of bourdieusian perspectives, we strive to explore ways to improve comparative research with an approach open to differences between journalistic practices, or, at the very least that tries to move away from a normative structure. To this end, five suggestions of a theorico-methodological nature are presented at the end of the article: a) improving cooperation between international research teams; b) strengthening the interpretation of the data obtained from field work, focusing mainly on explanations for the disparity in the practices of the various journalistic communities studied; c) incorporating indigenous categories to facilitate the translation of indicators or variables into language understandable to respondents; d) diversifying the sources of data as suggested by field research and e) choosing various types of media as objects of study to try to avoid the reification of the practices observed in print journalism.