L'impatto delle dinamiche generazionali sulle trasformazioni del giornalismo locale in Umbria al tempo dell’IA: una lettura bourdieusiana = Bourdieu in the Digital Information Field: The Struggle for Symbolic Capital in the Era of Algorithmic Heteronomy

Abstract

The Impact of Generational Dynamics on the Transformation of Local Journalism in Umbria in the Age of AI: A Bourdieusian Perspective. Artificial intelligence is profoundly reshaping journalism, with a significant impact also on local news organizations, whose sustainability is becoming increasingly challenging. While AI offers many opportunities, it also raises several risks, including job losses and erosion of the journalistic role. This paper aims to analyse local journalism in Umbria through Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory, whose conceptual framework provides effective tools for a layered and integrated analysis. In this perspective, the binary opposition between “old” and “new” (Benson 1999; Champagne 2000), pertaining to the morphological transformations of the field, represent a relevant lens to explore transformations. According to Bourdieu, oppositions generate dynamism and struggle within the journalistic field, where agents in different positions compete to define what should be regarded as “good journalism.” At stake is the accumulation of journalistic-specific capital, cognitive and practical resources unequally distributed across the field (Bourdieu 1986). As an element that differentiates the journalistic field from other social fields, this contributes to defining its relative autonomy despite external pressures, primarily political, economic, and technological. If journalistic field legitimizes technology as part of its specific capital, journalists who possess greater cultural-technological capital are likely to become dominant, as this form of capital can be converted into economic and symbolic capital. This raises some questions, because on the one hand, AI can redefine the distribution and legitimation of capital within the field, since the collective valorisation of technology may alter the very constitution of journalistic-specific capital (Lindblom et al. 2024). On the other hand, it may push the field toward the heteronomous pole, calling its autonomy into question and undermining journalists’ symbolic capital. Methodologically, the study adopts an analytical-interpretive approach based on twelve semi-structured interviews to six senior journalists and six junior journalists. Within the framework of the “old–new” opposition, the interviews seek to capture the effects of AI on capital, habitus, doxa, and illusio of Umbrian journalists socialized in different historical periods. The study aims to shed light on the dynamics of conflict of local journalism in the age of AI, highlighting tensions between orientations toward change and tendencies toward conservation.