Journalism Beyond the Nation-State: Multiscalar Fields and How to Navigate Them

Analysis of journalistic fields is dominated by approaches that take news media at the nation-state level as the major unit of analysis. More recently, sociologists have asked whether we can speak of global journalistic fields. Many scholars have concluded that global journalistic fields are weak at best, and news production remains bounded by nation-states. This paper offers a more fine-tuned understanding of the boundaries of journalistic fields. Drawing on an interview-based qualitative study of regional journalistic fields in contemporary Crimea (a region of Ukraine annexed by Russia in 2014) and in Tatarstan (a region of Russia), I answer the questions “how do states shape the autonomy of regional journalistic fields?” and “how do journalists navigate the limitations they face?” I advance two arguments: first, journalistic fields can be understood as multiscalar fields, and the practices of journalists are shaped by the configuration of political relations along different scales simultaneously (the scale of the city, the region, the national scale, the scale of other nation-states, and the international arena). Second, the scales that exert the most influence on journalistic fields can change depending on whether the nation-state or the region is embroiled in conflict.