The Primacy of Secondary Things: A Sustained Scientific Dialogue on Three Edges of the Journalistic Field

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

First things first:

I agree with the authors that, journalism is "weakly autonomous professional space (Abbott, 1988; Bourdieu, 1998; Carlson, 2015). This makes it difficult to “draw the line” around the journalistic field (Eldridge II, 2019) and, in turn, poses challenges to research on journalism as a profession" and their assesement to "develop the argument that more debate between sociology of professions and journalism studies is needed."

However sections 1.1 and chapter 2. are messy, the mix several layers of theory, methods and situation without clear messages and make it hard to follow the argument and the literature used is not used very well in my oppinion to work with the argument raised in the main section of chapter 1. 

The empirical work needs more structure and reasoning and chapter 4 needs a rework that is more in tune.

My recommendation:
(1) Tighten chapter 1 and make it more explicit what you are interested in

(2) Do a systematic lit review for chapter 2. Remove the content in chapter 1 that may alude to this. It is currently messy.

(3) Build a good chase for methods and describe them. You describe the studies you are building on - but give us more insight HOW you engage with them. Additionally: If you split lit rev. / theory / methods in distinct parts it will become easier to follow. 

(4) Rework either chapter 3 to include more theroretical layers / references and build from those things in chapter 4 - discussion or dial back on the claims made in chapter 3 and move those claims - with literature backing - to chapter 4 as well.

For me it is not the topic - which is highly relevant - that needs to be reworked or even changed, but the structure of the article - it tries to do too much with too little space. the main issue in my opinion is tied to a lack of clarity and outline for the research in chapter 1 and a missing distinction between the different parts of the study in chapter 2. The info in chapter 3 is great.  I loved reading it. 

 

 

 

However coming from the field of sociology  I would argue that their reasoning needs to be stronger and the argument for their empirical concept - the reengagement / re-reading - needs to be seen in a broader social scientific context. 

- The writing stlye of the article is good to okay and the perspective of the article - the reengagement with material - is sound. 

 - However there are severe issues with structure and clarity. The article is not very long but it lacks the structure of an empirical paper and the theoretical power of a good theory based work

Author Response

Please see the attachment, which summarises the changes made in response to the three reviews received.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article is a commendable attempt in examining sociology of journalism from alternative perspectives, sub-groups and meta-practices. In a relatively less-explored field of inquiry, the researchers have done well to explore the three edges using conversations.

The article is supported by a good backing from the literature available, though rather scanty on the latest (2020-21). I find the research is methodologically rigorous, and hence strong in its foundations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment, which summarises the changes made in response to the three reviews received.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Potentially mind-blowing for the sociological study of journalism as a profession, but needs more work.

General:

There are two mysterious elements in this paper, for which I propose a solution:

• Were the previous studies not published, and why?

It can be OK if not published, but the reasons for which they weren’t’ (or how they were published) should be part of the reflexive reasoning of this piece, especially because this is a paper describing a process of knowledge development by reorganising existing data.

• The results part 3 has great findings, but it looks like a draft, because of the formatting and the decision to use first-person and somehow limited summary comments from each of the researchers, with a dry summative discussion for each block. If, as you say, there are limits in your paper which are given by the fact that you did not interrogate each-other’s datasets again, why highlighting each researcher’s individual angle by using summaries like these ones? It would be much better to simply transform those individualised “summaries” into an expanded and improved discussion of the points of your paper. All elements for an excellent results section are there: reorganising how it is written will fully unpack all studies’ details and contribution to the paper’s findings, in particular John’s research, and it could make Matthew study’s links with the main RQs more clearly visible.

There are also two general issues to repair to, or specify:

• your bibliography seems quite limited for such an important study-statement. Consult and use, or critique, more literature, e.g. that about BBC journalistic multiskilling/deskilling, what are its limits vs your own edges approach? Etc.

 

• Have you got ethical approval and consent from participants to re-use these data?

 

Minor issues in the text:

• Line 51: “dominated”, or “dominant”?
• Line 92: “are all cases are examples”: “are” to delete?
• Line 108-110: make it clear that theories and methods are all into the second part; may be better to call this part something like “theoretical and methodological approaches”? The part you provided is not really about theories and then about methods, it’s about your overall rational for the development of the paper, and it includes many elements.
• Line 166-7: “Matthew analyses the logics of collective 166 action of a French militant group”: I understand this and names to follow to be Authors, and that they will be substituted by the surname of the author once ready for publication. I understand the study was not published before as there is no reference.
• Lines 265-270: not convinced; are the first and last study really about else than “closure”, or more of a mix? The first is a closure from outside (activist media define an alternative to “classic” journalism), the second sounds like a closure from within (journalists managing traditional challenges in the sector - emotions - to re-establish traditional principles of the profession). This may need a clarification.

Author Response

Please see the attachment, which summarises the changes made in response to the three reviews received.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for adressing most of my concerns. I still see some minor issues when it comes to the structure and clarity. But I love to read and think about the topics you addressed. 

I would love to read a longer and more detailed form of your work.