Decoding inequalities in the journalistic field: A theoretical approach to how symbolic violence shapes journalistic career trajectories

Achieving diversity is a fraught process in the journalistic field, with persistent inequalities shaping the experiences of marginalized journalistic actors. By combining Bourdieu’s field theory and Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, we offer a conceptual framework tracing how marginalized journalistic actors experience symbolic violence and symbolic dominance in different journalistic fields around the globe. These experiences can stem from journalists’ lack of appropriate forms of capital, the “right” journalistic habitus and an understanding of the doxa shaping what journalism is: what it ought to look like and who can be considered a legitimate and authoritative member of a given journalistic field. We illustrate this conceptual framework using possible career trajectories of (marginalized) journalists to highlight various forms of symbolic violence experienced by (dis)empowered actors along the three main stages of journalistic careers—namely becoming a journalist, being a journalist and potentially leaving journalism later on.