Professional identity formation of journalists as ideology within a Discourse Theory perspective

Tant, Cédric
(2020) DiscourseNet 24: Discourse and Communication as Propaganda. Digital and multimodal forms of activism, persuasion and disinfor — Location: Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles (7.September.2020)

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This presentation aims to discuss the concept of ideology during journalists’ construction of identities. More broadly, the presentation questions the role of journalists from either a realistic (Gauthier, 2004) or a constructivist (Cornu, 1998) perspective. Indeed, even if the boundaries of journalists’ identities are blurred (Le Cam, 2009; Le Cam & Domingo, 2015; Ruellan, 1993) it seems that a kind of moral code through deontology fixes a part of those identities (Ruellan, 2011). Even so, can journalists be related to some ideology as cement of a professional group (Deuze, 2005)? Considering that a lot of the characteristics of journalists are similar all over the world (Weaver, 1998) as well as the democratic and historic role they had and still have (Wolton, 1991), one can consider journalists are homogeneous enough to produce a unique discourse about their identity and construct an ideology. We would like to question that idea by putting forward the discourse theory concepts of ideology and identity as a social construction of meanings through equivalence and difference (Howarth, Norval, & Stavrakakis, 2000). Scholars have shown that journalists construct their identity not only within their profession but also by considering the representation of journalism by the other social groups (Le Cam, 2005). On the one hand, journalists seem to be the only legitimated group who can produce identical discourse – and ideology – about itself and thus try to rarefy that type of discourse (Ruellan, 2010) and, on the other, they form an identity based on external discourses. This dichotomous position is heuristic as it allows to think the notion of ideology in discourse theory as a construction of identity through social practices. The presentation finishes by showing how the debate between constructivists and realists is relevant in order to think about ideology among journalists.
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Tant, C. (2020). Professional identity formation of journalists as ideology within a Discourse Theory perspective. DiscourseNet 24: Discourse and Communication as Propaganda. Digital and multimodal forms of activism, persuasion and disinfor, Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/168622