Understanding the German Media System with the Help of Bourdieu and Elias: Historical Sociology of Press-Political Relations in Germany

Résumé En

A scientist’s work in and about a foreign country implies a distancing from his or her own analytical routines. This paper aims to present a reflexive approach toward the use of “French” media studies patterns on a German case, and the heuristic gains of mixing them with the German ones. Starting from a sociological paradox and the surprising lack of research on German journalistic institutions, the aim of this paper is to show that the academic socialization of a French researcher can make heuristic contributions to research on Germany. This paper is based on a long-term historical sociology book (starting in 1918) on interactions between press and politics in Germany, and especially the continuum of both the political journalists’ association (nowadays: Bundespressekonferenz) and governmental spokesperson agencies (nowadays: Bundespresseamt). The paper first briefly presents the two national analytical traditions as starting points which have to be overcome in this specific research on Germany. The following section deals more precisely with the new framework of the research on the relations between journalists and politicians. The aim, finally, is to show how this method of bringing together French journalism and political sociology (influenced by a constructivist and historical approach) with the systemic German media studies approach can lead to specific advances in our understanding of the structure of the national public sphere.