University of Washington｜Prof. Matthew J. Powers’ Talk：Why Pursue a Career in Journalism? Towards a Renewed Sociology of Journalists

University of Washington｜Prof. Matthew J. Powers’ Talk：Why Pursue a Career in Journalism? Towards a Renewed Sociology of Journalists
演講時間：11/27 (三) 12:10 – 14:20
演講地點：陽明交通大學客家學院 HK140
講者：Prof. Matthew J. Powers.

講者介紹：
Matthew Powers是華盛頓大學（西雅圖）傳播學系的教授，同時也是新聞、媒體與民主中心的共同主任。Powers教授的研究與教學領域涵蓋比較媒體、質化研究方法與新聞學社會學。他與Sandra Vera-Zambrano合著了《The Journalist’s Predicament: Difficult Choices in a Declining Profession》（哥倫比亞大學出版社，2023年）。此外，Powers教授曾共同編輯《Rethinking Media Research for Changing Societies》（劍橋大學出版社，2020年），並撰寫了《NGOs as Newsmakers: The Changing Landscape of International News》（哥倫比亞大學出版社，2018年）。

演講簡介 ：
This talk begins from the premise that journalism scholars are poorly positioned to answer a question of fundamental relevance: why anyone would bother being a journalist, given the low wages, uncertain career prospects and diminished prestige associated with the profession. Professor Powers first outline the habits of mind that prevent scholars from asking this question or lead them to provide answers that repeat journalistic common-sense. Then, he will propose a renewed sociology of journalists that centers the cultivation, management, and—for some—cessation of the belief that a career in news is worthy of one’s investments, highlighting the structuring force of social backgrounds, personal trajectories and national contexts in shaping who becomes a journalist and on what terms. Finally, Professor Powers will link the plight of journalists to threats confronting a host of socially important jobs like nursing, teaching and caretaking, which drawing on Weber (1919) he considers as vocations. The broadest utility of this approach, he suggests, is the formulation of a research agenda that asks about the terms under which contemporary vocational commitments are made, by whom, and with what implications for both these jobs and the societies in which they are embedded.