"Frame" And "News Field":The Academic History Investigation About Two Research Paths Of News Production

Since the beginning of the middle of the last century,the thinking about how news is produced has never been interrupted.To this day,four recognized research paths have been formed:the social organization path,the political economic path,the cultural research path inherited from Michael Schudson's authoritative trichotomy,and the news field path that was regarded as a new starting point in the 1990s.Among them,the social organization path with framework theory as the core and the news field path with the news field theory as the core have experienced large fluctuations from prosperity to silence,and are "interlaced" in the field of news production research in mainland China.However,in response to such conspicuous phenomenon of iterations and confusion of paths,the communication academic community seems to have "turned a blind eye".Before the existing problems have yet to be recognized,they can't wait to find the "next" so-called new paradigm.In the face of this disordered situation,this paper attempts to conduct an academic history study on the two research paths of news production in which the "framework" and "news field" reside,discuss their possibilities and limitations,and clarify the differences between the two.And based on above analyses,a pre-judgment will be made on the future of news production sociology.With the help of classical literature interpretation and knowledge sociology analysis,this study finds that Goffman's framework theory is functionally interpreted in the "first wave" of news production research,which leads to the social organization path being mainly applied to the traditional editorial field.Once out of the newsroom,the social organization path has to give way to the news field path that absorbs the essence of the "framework." However,in the new news format of the mediated society,as the boundaries of news and its production sites gradually disappear into the entire social field,the interpretation of the news field path is also exhausted.When the media evolved from a fixed frame or explicit structural space to an invisible social organizer,the thinking about "new news" production should go beyond the outdated social organization path and the news field path,and go further on the path of "mediation".Interestingly,this first step may have to be taken from correcting the misunderstanding of the "framework".