ABSTRACT
To approach interlopers as journalism and to propose new ways of seeing the journalistic field is to ask complex questions of what it is to be considered journalism. This chapter sets out ways of thinking about the dynamics of belonging and non-belonging to the journalistic field as tensions between the journalistic 'observant', and the interloper as journalistic 'heretic'. Field theory has proven useful for understanding a changing journalistic field in part because Bourdieu's work does not predicate understanding on the activities of one subset of actors, or assume one area of practice as defining a field. Forces of socialization are key for exploring the construction of fields, and are the focus of the analysis as to whether or not new actors might also 'belong' to the journalistic field. For journalism and the journalistic field, however, dominant narratives of belonging that overemphasize unity can suggest a view of the journalistic field as stable, and neglect counter-imaginations of the field.
