(Media created) expertise in the media
The article develops a notion of expertise based on Bourdieu’s notion of
symbolic capital. This conception of expertise focuses on public recognition of different forms of capital that, through this public recognition, come to be seen as competencies, i.e. as expertise. The article furthermore argues that the transformation of field specific forms of capital - such as academic, intellectual or cultural capital - into symbolic capital increasingly happens in and through the mass media. In other words, journalists’ selections of expert sources legiti-mise certain professions and bodies of knowledge as experts and expertise. This has consequences for universities given the fact that: a) contemporary knowledge society contains many types of research institutions and profes-sions outside universities that can deliver expertise, and b) these institutions tend to be more willing than universities to play up to the mass media in order to secure the legitimisation of their knowledge as expertise.
