Rodney Benson, Curriculum vitae, page 1 of 18
RODNEY D. BENSON
New YorkUniversity
Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
239 Greene Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003-6674
e-mail:
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Director of Graduate Studies, Dept. of Media, Culture, and Communication, fall 2009-
New YorkUniversity
Associate Professor, Department of Media, Culture, andCommunication, fall 2008 –
New YorkUniversity
Affiliated Faculty Member, Department of Sociology, 2005 –
New YorkUniversity
Assistant Professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, 2002-2008
New YorkUniversity
Assistant Professor, Department of International Communications / Department of Social Sciences and History
The American University of Paris, spring 2000-spring 2002
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 2000
M.A., Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1994
M.I.A., International Affairs, ColumbiaUniversity, 1994
B.A., Journalism and Mass Communication, IowaStateUniversity, 1983
PUBLICATIONS
I. Refereed Journal Articles
“What Makes for a Critical Press? A Case Study of French and U.S. Immigration News
Coverage.” International Journal of Press/Politics, 15, 1 (winter 2010): 3-24.
“What Makes NewsMore Multiperspectival? A Field Analysis.” Poetics, 37, 5-6
(fall 2009): 402-418.
“Shaping the Public Sphere: Habermas and Beyond.” The American Sociologist,40 (fall
2009): 175-192.
“How States, Markets and Globalization Shape the News: The French and U.S. National Press, 1965-1997.” (Lead author, with Daniel C. Hallin). European Journal of Communication 22, 1 (March 2007): 27-48.
“Etats-Unis: Un Echo du 11 Septembre.” (Second author, with Valerie Streit; article on
U.S. news coverage of Madrid terrorist bombing in special issue on international media events). Hermès, 46(2006): 95-100.
“News Media as a ‘Journalistic Field’: What Bourdieu adds to New Institutionalism, and Vice Versa.” Political Communication 23, 2 (2006):
187-202.
“Constructing Social Problems in an Age of Globalization: A French-American Comparison.” (Lead author, with Abigail C. Saguy). American Sociological
Review 70, 2 (2005): 233-259.
“American journalism and the politics of diversity.”Media, Culture & Society 27, 1 (2005): 1-20.
(Earlier, shorter French-language version: “Journalisme et marketing: l’enjeu de la diversité.”Quaderni (University of Paris-Sorbonne) 47 (2002): 85-100.
(Updated, revised version in Race/Gender/Media: Considering diversity across audiences, content, and producers, 2nd edition, ed., Rebecca Ann Lind, Longman, 2010: 333-340).
“Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In.” Political Communication, 21 (2004): 275- 292.
“Why Conceptual Models and ‘Big’ Institutions Matter: A Response to David Altheide, Nina Eliasoph, William Gamson, and Todd Gitlin.” Political Communication, 21 (2004): 311-314.
“La fin du Monde?: Tradition and Change in the French Press.” French Politics,Culture & Society 22, 1 (2004): 108-126.
“The political/literary model of French journalism: Change and continuity in immigration
coverage, 1973-1991.”Journal of European Area Studies 10, 1 (2002): 49-70.
“La logique du profit dans les médias américains.” Actes de la recherche ensciences sociales 131-132 (2000): 107-115.
(English-language abridged version published as: “Tearing down the ‘Wall’ in American Journalism.”Core: International Journal of the Humanities (Paris) 1, 1 (2001).
“Field theory in comparative context: a new paradigm for media studies.”
Theory and Society28, 3 (1999): 463-498.
“Global knowledge: How media effects research can aid globalization theorizing.”
Berkeley Journal of Sociology 40 (1996): 61-84.
II. Books
Framing Immigration: How the French and American Media Shape Public Debate (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, “Communication, Society and Politics” series, forthcoming).
Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field. (Editor, with Erik Neveu). Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005.
“Introduction: Field Theory as a Work in Progress.” (Co-authored with Erik Neveu). In R. Benson and E. Neveu, eds., Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005): 1-25.
“Mapping Field Variation: Journalism in France and the United States.” In R. Benson and E. Neveu, eds., Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005): 85-112.
III. Book Chapters
“Comparative News Media Systems.” In Stuart Allan, ed., Routledge Companion
to News Media and Journalism Studies, ed. Stuart Allan (London: Routledge, 2010): 614-626.
“Futures of the News: International Considerations and Further Reflections.” In Natalie
Fenton, ed., New Media, Old News (London: Sage, 2010): 187-200.
“Space, Place, and the Changing American Mediascape.” (Co-author with AuroraWallace). In F. Eckardt and Martina Zschocke, eds., MediaCity (Weimar, Germany: Bauhaus University Publishers, 2007): 209-226.
“Commercialism and Critique: California’s Alternative Weeklies.” In J. Curran and N. Couldry, eds., Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003): 111-127.
IV. Reviews and Encyclopedia Articles
Review of Aeron Davis’s The Mediation of Power: A Critical Introduction
(Routledge, 2007).
International Journal of Press/Politics 14, 4 (October 2009): 523-524.
Review of Paul C. Adams’s Atlantic Reverberations: French Representations of an
American Presidential Election (Ashgate, 2007).
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 4, 3 (2008): 409-412.
“Normative Theories of Journalism.” The Blackwell InternationalEncyclopedia of Communication (Wolfgang Donsbach, ed., 2008): 2591-2597.
Review of Paul Starr’s The Creation of the Media.
Archives européennes de sociologie/European Journal of SociologyXLVI, 3 (2005): 541-544.
Review of Pablo Boczkowski’s Digitizing the News.
New Media & Society7 (2005): 854-857.
Review of John David Skrentny’s (ed.) Color Lines and Joel Fetzer’s PublicAttitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany.
Public Opinion Quarterly 67, 2 (2003): 304-310.
Review of Bridget Fowler’s Bourdieu and Cultural Theory.
Social Forces 78, 1 (1999): 366-368.
“Making the Media See Red: Pierre Bourdieu's campaign against television journalism.” French Politics and Society 16, 2 (1998): 59-65.
(Republished in Pierre Bourdieu 2 [four-volume set], edited by Derek Robbins. London: Sage, 2004).
“Media power: A French critical perspective.” (Review/essay on RethinkingMedia
Theory, by Armand and Michèle Mattelart).
Journal of International Affairs 47 (1993): 279-286.
“The nation -- A state of mind.” (Review of Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson)Journal of International Affairs 45 (1992): 639-645.
V. Commissioned Book Chapters / Invited Articles or Reviews
Review of Tamara Chaplin’s Turning on the Mind: French Philosophers on Television
(University of Chicago Press, 2007). French Politics, Culture, and Society. Due Fall 2010.
“Bourdieu and the Media.” Invited to write article for online journal Sociology Compass
(fall 2010 issue).
Bourdieu and the Media (Cambridge, UK: Polity, under contract for completion 2011).
VI. Other Articles in Progress
“Is the Internet ‘Americanizing’ or ‘Europeanizing’ the News? A Comparison of Danish,
French, and U.S. print and online newspapers.” Lead author, with co-authors Matthew Powers, Ida Schultz, Mark Orsten, and Sandra Vera. 30 pp. manuscript, under review. Summer 2010.
MISC. PUBLICATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
“What Makes for a Critical Press? Research Shows a Role for Government Support”,
invited guest blog for “Freepress.com” on my recent French-U.S. comparative research, January 21, 2010, accessible at:
Unpaid consultant to French-American Foundation, invited to serve as member of
planning committee for second “Covering Immigration” conference to be held in Miami, May 7-9, 2010 (I was invited and participated as a non-speaker at the first conference held in Paris, Nov. 2009)
Unpaid consultant to Free Press (Robert McChesney, founder), participated in Strategic
Policy Roundtable on Saving Journalism, New York, April 7, 2009
Unpaid consultant to Victory Navasky, Professor, Columbia School of Journalism,
analysis of design of survey instrument for online news media study, fall 2009
“Content Analysis.” Wrote and presented segment for educational film “Qualitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences.” Insight Media: Odyssey Productions, 2006.
“The Mediated Public Sphere: A Model for Cross-National Research.”Working Paper #2001-7, Center for the Study of Culture, Organizations and Politics. University of California, Berkeley. Available at /~iir/culture/papers.html . August 2001.
“The ‘Americanization’ of the EuropeanCity? An Analysis of Contemporary French Scholarly and News Media Discourse on Urban Problems and the Banlieue.” Center for German and European Studies, University of California-Berkeley. Co- authored with Loïc J.D. Wacquant. March 1998.
“Telecommunications and society: a critical review of the research literature on computer-mediated communications.” Working Paper, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE). Cited extensively in Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (vol. I).August 1994.
“The Future of the Newspaper.”Working Paper, FreedomForumCenter for Media Studies (Produced for Freedom Forum fellow James Hoge). New York, May 1992.
“The British are coming; How the BBC is enlarging its empire.”
Columbia Journalism Review (July/August 1991).
“Drowning pool?; Why some older NBC employees have that sinking feeling.”
Columbia Journalism Review (May/June 1991).
“Fake my day: a pose is a pose is a pose.” (Review/essay on What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era, by Peggy Noonan).
In these Times (March 21-27, 1990).
SELECTED MEDIA INTERVIEWS / CITATIONS
“French Connections.” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2010, p. 63. Review of
my article (“What Makes for a Critical Press? (Press/Politics, 15, 1: 13-24) by Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend.
“What Makes for a Critical Press? Research Shows a Role for Government Support”,
invited guest blog for “Freepress.com” on my recent French-U.S. comparative research, January 21, 2010, cited by The Newspaper Guild, National Affairs “Inside Information”, and other websites.
Interviewed by Columbia Spectator for story concerning how scandals affect university reputations, “Getting a Handle on Scandal,” February 25, 2007.
Interviewed by Brazilian newspaper O Globo for story concerning U.S. presidential candidates’ use of internet websites, “Uma brigada eletrônica: Candidatos usam internet para chegar aos eleitores,” January 28, 2007.
Interview requested by ABC News concerning Venezuelan news media during Pres. Bush trip to the region, fall 2005 (declined because in Germany at the time of request).
Interviewed by Japanese Nippon TV, on U.S. and Japanese governmental regulation of foreign media ownership, February 24, 2005.
Provided background information about French press in response to requests from International Herald-Tribune Deputy Managing Editor Robert Marino (June 2007) and New York Times reporter Marc Lacey (2005).
Quoted in German Online Technology Review, article by Gabriele Hooffacker, September 26, 2004. Available at
(Quotes from my talk “Public Relations in the Journalistic Field,” European Public Relations and Research Assoc. Conference, Leipzig, Germany, September 2004).
“Journalism, French and American Style.” On-Line Interview with Jay Rosen, “Pressthink” website, December 2003. Available at pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/12/05/benson_interview.html
Quoted in Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen. La face cachée du Monde: Du contre-pouvoir aux abus de pouvoir. Paris: Fayard, 2003 (French best-selling book about Le Monde).
SELECTED VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS AND INVITED LECTURES
“Public Spheres, Fields, and Networks: Conceptualizing Local, National, and Global
Communications.” Invited speaker for conference on “Internationalizing
‘International Communication’”, Center for Communication Research, City University of Hong Kong, December 3-5, 2010.
“How the U.S. and French Media Framed Immigration, 1973-2006.” Opening speaker,
French-American Foundation Conference on “Covering Immigration.” Miami, May 5-6, 2010
“What is news diversity and how do we get it? Lessons from comparing French and
American immigration coverage.” Invited Speaker for Conference on News and
Inclusion: Journalism and the Politics of Diversity, Stanford University Department of Communication, March 4, 2010.
“Measuring and Explaining Immigration Frames.” Invited Plenary Speaker, Conference
on Media Framing ofImmigration, University of Oslo, Norway, December 4, 2009.
“Does Field Theory Help Explain Omnibus Media Cultural Production? A Comparison of
French and U.S. Television News Framing of Immigration.” YaleUniversity Department of Sociology fall speaker series. New Haven, CT, November 17, 2009.
“American and European Journalistic Traditions” Fulbright Institute Workshop on “Mass
Culture, the Media, and American Politics.”New York, July 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.
“Measuring and Explaining Variation in Media Multivocality.” Paper presented at
ErasmusUniversity (Rotterdam, Netherlands) Conference on “Classification in the Arts and Media: The Impact of Globalization and Commercialization.” By-invitation only conference. June 2008.
Visiting Professor, L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Institute of Political Studies), Toulouse,
France, March 2008 (also 2002, 2004, 2005).
“Cultural Form and the Logics of Fields.” Invited Speaker, University of VirginiaDepartment of Sociology Fall Colloquium Series. November 2007.
“After Habermas: The Revival of a Macro-Sociology of Media.” Special invited panel on the “History of Sociology and the Mass Media.” AmericanSociological Association annualconference, New York, August 2007.
“Field Theory in Contemporary Media and Journalism Research: Theoretical and Methodological Issues.”Presented paper at invited workshop jointly sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales /Maison des sciences de l’homme. Paris, February 2007.
“The U.S. Media and Immigration.” Lecture to visiting Mexican, South American, and Spanish students from the Mass Media Executive Training Program (Mexico City, Mexico). New York, July 2006.
“Immigration and U.S. Nationalism.” Paper presented at Russell Sage Foundation Workshop. New York, May 2006.
“Journalism: public profession and late modernity.” Invited to present paper and participate in Meeting of International Advisory Board, Academy of Finland research project. Tampere, Finland, May 2006 (declined because in China at the time).
“Macro-structural Models of Media and Society:Public Sphere(s), Arenas, Fields, and Institutions.”Eastern Sociological Society annual conference, invited presenter in special panel, “The Future of Media Sociology.” Boston, February 2006.
Visiting Professor, European Union-funded MediaCity Project, Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany. October-December 2005.
“Field theory and Comparative Media Research.” Series of lectures at MODINET (Centre for Media and Democracy) conference, Copenhagen, and at Roskilde University, Denmark. September 16, 20 and 22, 2004.
Invited discussant for special panel on “Media Markets and Convergence,” American Sociological Association annual conference. San Francisco, August 2004.
“Mapping Field Variation: Journalism in France and the United States.” Invited lecture to RutgersUniversitySchool of Communication. New Brunswick, NJ, May 2004.
“Immigration Debates in the French Media: 1973, 1983 and 1991.” Presentation to the NYU Institute of French Studies. Feb. 10, 2004.
“Toward a critical political economy of the media: challenging the conventional wisdom.” Media Ecology Conference. WilliamsLake, NY, November 2003.
“The Institutional Structuring of the Public Sphere: Political Debate and Social Protest in the French and American News.” Invited lecture at the Institut für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien. Bremen, Germany, May 2002.
Invited lectures: USC Department of Sociology, Brandeis Department of Sociology, WilliamsCollege Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of California-San Diego Department of Communication, University of Washington- Seattle Department of Communication, NYU Department of Culture and Communication. Fall 2001-Spring 2002.
“Bourdieu and the Mass Media: New Approaches to Media Sociology.” Invited to present at featured session on “Cultural Producers and Politics: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu,” American Sociological Association annual conference. Washington, D.C., August 2000.
“La recherche du profit et ses effets dans les médias américains: le cas du Los Angeles
Times et de l’Orange CountyRegister.” Invited speaker for panel on the “Responsibilities of Journalists,” Centre Universitaire de recherches administratives et politiques de Picardie (CURAPP). Amiens, France, March 2000.
SELECTED CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP PAPERS
“Is the Internet ‘Europeanizing’ or ‘Americanizing’ Global Journalism? An Analysis of
the Form of Print and Online Newspapers in Denmark, France and the U.S.” 20 pp. paper accepted for presentation at the International Communication Associationannual conference, Singapore, June 24, 2010. Lead author; co-authors Mark Blach-Ørsten (Roskilde University, Denmark); Matthew Powers (NYU); Sandra Vera (Toulouse Institute of Politics, France); Ida Willig (Roskilde University, Denmark).
“Transformation of U.S. Journalism: Long-Term Trends.” Invited discussant in panel
with presentations by Daniel Hallin and Charles Briggs, Raluca Cozma, and Victor Pickard, ICA conference in Singapore, June 25, 2010.
“Framing the Immigration Debate in the U.S. National Media, 1974-2006.” Paper
presented to the ConnecticutCollege Conference on Undocumented Hispanic Immigration. New London, CT, October 16, 2009.
“Newspaper Form and Multivocal Content: A Comparison of the French and U.S.
Journalistic Fields.” Paper presented at International Communication Association conference, Political Communication division, Montreal. May 2008.
“Public Relations in the Public Sphere: Habermas, Bourdieu, and the Question of Power.”
Paper presented at International Communication Association conference, Philosophy of Communication division, Montreal. May 2008.
“Shaping the Immigration Debate: Multiperspectival News in the French and American Press.” American Sociological Association annual conference, Session on Sociology of Media. Montreal, August 2006.
“How States, Markets and Globalization Shape the News: The French and American National Press, 1965-1997.” With Daniel C. Hallin. Political Communication “Top Papers” Session, International Communication Association annual conference. New York, May 2005.
“Public Relations in the Journalistic Field: Toward a Model for Cross-National Comparative Research.”European Public Relations Education and Research Association conference on Public Relations and the Public Sphere. Leipzig, Germany, September 2004.
“Can Advertising Foster Radical Critique? The Case of 'Alternative Newsweeklies'”
Paper presented at American Sociological Association annual conference, Session on Sociology of Media. San Francisco, August 2004.
“ ‘Field’ versus ‘Institutional’ Models of News Production.” Special panel on “New Institutionalism and the News: Directions for Future Research.” Southern Political Science Association annual conference. New Orleans, January 2004.
“Plus ça change … American and French political journalism, 1960s-1990s.” Presented at conference, “Le journalisme comme profession: Regard international comparé,” Université Rennes 1, Lannion (Brittany, France), May 2003.
“La structuration des espaces publics: Etude comparée du traitement de
l'immigration dans la presse américaine et française, 1973-1994.” Atelier “Sociologie des journalistes et de leurs publics, l'accès différencié aux medias” École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Paris, December 2002.
“Globalization of Social Problems? Sexual Harassment and Immigration in the French and American News.” Presented with Abigail C. Saguy. UCLACenter for Comparative Social Analysis (November 2002) and American Sociological Association annual meetings (August 2001).
“Manque de journalisme spécialisé sur l’immigration en Amérique: causes et conséquences.” Séminaire: Les journalismes spécialisés, Institut Français de Presse, Université Paris II. Paris, June 2001.
“The ‘Media Field’: A new research paradigm for the sociology of journalism.”
Mass Communication Division session. International Communication Association annual conference. San Francisco, May 1999.
“Bringing the Media Back In to Analysis of Political Culture.”
Regular session on Political Culture, American Sociological Association annual conference. San Francisco, August 1998.
“Constructing and Dismantling a French ‘Right to Difference’: A Social Constructionist Re-interpretation.”HarvardUniversity Conference on Politics and Identity Formation in Contemporary Europe. Cambridge, Mass., April 1997.