A new field of possibilities? A study of "social and cultural openness" in journalism
Since the 2000s, journalism, like other social spheres, has been subject to social and political demands for greater "diversity". In this context, "equal opportunity" measures have been introduced to promote "social openness" and the inclusion of working-class and "visible minority" profiles in schools and newsrooms. At the crossroads of the sociology of journalism, the sociology of social mobility and the sciences of information and communication, this study analyses, on the one hand, the effects of 'diversity' schemes and the discourses that underpin them on the career paths of beneficiaries, and on the other, the construction of new journalist profiles in the space of debate on 'cultural and social openness' and within the professional group.
Against a backdrop of tension between discourses of democratisation and mechanisms of reproduction in the field of journalism, this longitudinal research sheds light on the logics of selection at work in this evolving space, the transformations in the properties, dispositions and social networks of the beneficiaries of 'social opening' policies, and the ambivalence of the symbolic markings to which their careers may have been subjected. The aim is to foster critical reflection on journalism and its representations of social worlds, by examining the conditions of production of these representations through the prism of inequalities in access to the profession.
This project is a winner of the "Pépinière d'Excellence 2025" call for projects, funded by the Amidex Initiative of Excellence and the France 2030 Program.
Scientific manager
Claire Tomasella, Associate Professor in Information and Communication Sciences at Aix Marseille University, member of the Mediterranean Institute for Information and Communication Sciences (IMSIC UR 7492)
Team Members
Stéphane Cabrolié, Associate Professor in Information and Communication Sciences at Aix-Marseille University, member of the IMSIC
Magali Nonjon, University Professor, Deputy Director of the Mediterranean Center for Sociology, Political Science, and History (Mesopolhis UMR 7064)
Dany Sakka-Amini, doctoral researcher (contractual) at the Laboratory for Economics and Sociology of Work (LEST UMR 7317), associate member of the Nantes Center for Sociology (UMR 6025)
