Abstract

This thesis addresses the manner in which the re-design of CBC's English news service in 2009 is shaped by the broadcaster's interrelations with the journalistic, political, and economic fields. It draws on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of field theory to analyze how changes to the CBC's structure of journalistic production alters the distribution of capitals (cultural, economic, symbolic) the broadcaster possesses, and subsequently, the strategies the CBC employs to pursue its particular stakes as a public broadcaster in the journalistic field. This thesis claims that the latest round of CBC News re-structuring, into a “content company” or integrated news operation, reflects the CBC's new strategy as a public broadcaster to offer on-demand content and be interactive with audiences, as encapsulated in the re-design motto, “know more, know now” (CBC, 2009h). Further, this articulation of the CBC's renewed role functions to disavow the increased political and economic pressures on the broadcaster to be financially efficient with mandated funds and generate revenues to fund expanding operations. Thus, the CBC's articulation of its new public broadcasting role during the 2009 re-design demonstrates how the CBC refracts demands from external fields into its 'prism of interests' by balancing mandated objectives with external demands (Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008, p. 19).
The first part draws on three moments of structural transformation at the CBC since its inception in order to illustrate how the CBC, from the outset, has participated in multiple fields and its structural changes reflect that throughout its history. The second part maps out the structural changes to news production in the 2009 re-design by drawing on CBC, government, and related documents in order to show how official articulations of the re-design function to disavow political and economic pressures the broadcaster is attempting to refract into its mandate. The final part employs a case study to analyze how the “content company” news structure operates during a large-scale Canadian news event, the death of Jack Layton, including how interactive and on-demand elements are incorporated into news production.