Le nuove regole del gioco: campo mediatico, meta-capitale algoritmico e crisi dell'autorità intellettuale = The New Rules of the Game: Media Field, Algorithmic Meta-Capital, and the Crisis of Intellectual Authority

Abstract

The New Rules of the Game: Media Field, Algorithmic Meta-Capital, and the Crisis of Intellectual Authority. This paper examines the transformation of intellectual authority in the era of digital platformization. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's field theory and a reconstruction of the historical conditions for the role's emergence, it proposes a "tri-dimensional" model of the intellectual, wherein the media field acts as a structural interface necessary for the conversion of specific capital into public authority. The article argues that the current media ecosystem has subverted the traditional sequence of legitimation: while authority historically derived from the autonomy of the field of production, the media field now imposes a heteronomous logic where visibility precedes internal consecration. Within this framework, the figure of the influencer is interpreted not as a degeneration of the intellectual, but as their structural homolog, born from mutations in the media field and the shifting balances between fields of production and the public sphere.