ABSTRACT
The interaction of any journalists with news sources can be seen as an exchange of information for publicity. This is a somewhat different sort of exchange from the ‘purely’ social kind of exchange in small groups and in other primary work, or friendship, groups so elegantly analysed by Homans (1961) and Blau (1964). The exchange in journalism is less structured than within the Homans kind of on-going primary group, the traditional non-money economy, or an economic system ultimately based on legally binding contracts and money values.
