How Digital Convergence is Changing Cultural Theory

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu's notion of cultural field loses its explanatory power when economic value dominates the symbolic and when institutions such as museums and publishers depend on market forces. This loss of autonomy is accentuated with digital convergence, which integrates texts and images, the factories that produce them and the habitus of readers, spectators, and Internet users. This process gives rise to new conceptual and political challenges, such as the question of whether new televisual cultures can exist or the autonomy of media which are now resituated in an intermedia communication framework, or immersed in globalized or intercultural contexts.