Positioning and place of the actors of cultural criticism: a study on the relatioship between news values and hierarchy

Abstract

This paper studies the cultural criticism practiced today from the relationship between "news values" and hierarchy of legitimacy. To do so, builds on the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu on the positions held by agents (journalists, critics and academics) within the fields of production, reproduction, consecration and distribution of symbolic goods. According to Bourdieu, there is a direct relationship between the position of an agent and the place hold in the field. The hypothesis developed here and applied to study three critical positions conveyed in the media recently, is that the more an agent is located at the margin of a field, the greater the possibility that this agent will be positioned in a non-legitimate way and, therefore, less interdependent towards multipliers and consecration.