The Politics of Interfield Antagonisms

Abstract

Bourdieu’s field theory has been used to analyse the internal dynamics of the journalistic field, and to compare journalistic fields in different national contexts. However, studies of the power relations between the journalistic field and other social fields have been less common, despite the theory’s general assumptions about “the media’s” capacity to shape the coordinates and subjectivities of agents elsewhere. This article explores the interfield antagonisms between the journalistic field and visual arts field that followed the nomination of the artist collective “et al.” as New Zealand’s representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale. We focus on a particular journalistic interview where the different subjectivities of both fields encountered each other directly. Using conversation and discourse analysis as methodological supplements, we highlight how the journalist’s rhetorical strategies enacted a logic of symbolic domination which decried the perceived unwillingness of the artists to render themselves accountable to the New Zealand “public”. At the same time, we show how et al.’s counter-response politicized journalistic conventions normally taken for granted, and enabled an expression of artistic autonomy against the symbolic violence and naturalized authority of the journalistic field.