On field theory...

The field theory, as originally used by psychologists, was part of the Gestalt movement which was an (mainly European) attempt to counter the (mainly American...) mainstream of the ever micro and fragmentized approaches of behaviorism. It applied a holistic and dynamic concept on how people perceive the world. And just alike, Burdieu uses his 'field' concept s to explain specific social patterns that is to be explored in a whole and as an dynamic setting, more as a part of an open system. Then, what are the fields made of? Take this week's reading, substitute all the words 'field' with '(social) network' and it makes perfect sense. Taking into account Burdieu's argument that dynamics of various forces are in play, it was not surprising that the concept of 'field with in field' has similiarities with Parsons' 'AGIL within AGIL'. And then again, such reoccuring patterns were also part of the fractal designs in chaos theory to explain the natural settings of an ecology, as read from previous week's reading by Capra. A beautiful interconnection.

I think it is an important step to get into the big question for this class this semester, namely the media ecology, since this reading deals with the production of news; and that news is also produced in a socially networked manner with capital and habitus in complex interplay. One question I would like to think on is how these patterns can be applied to the people in general, as it becomes clear that individuals have more and more power to produce and distribute "news" with the help of advanced online technologies such as the Internet. "Every citizen is a journalist", as the famous headphrase of Ohmynews.com goes. It should be worth to compare that pattern with the 'professional' journalism pattern, if we want to see the overall dynamics of what constitutes today's news sphere as experienced by the individual.