ABSTRACT
Utilizing Bourdieu's theory of journalism as a 'field', this chapter considers the emergent roles for the citizen in what used to be journalist-only, boundaried spaces. Considering press scholars' delineated roles for journalists, which include fact custodians, storyteller, and historian, it explores how citizens craft stories and interprets events while often repairing newswork alongside these mainstreams takes. The chapter considers how they do this and what the implications are for the boundaries of journalism. It argues that conceiving of commenting spaces as boundary objects could illuminate the shifting power dynamics of the journalistic field. It approaches all of this data thinking about Bourdieu's considerations of agents within a field, particularly interlopers who have the power supposedly to assume positionality within a field and thus transform that field's border. It also discusses how field theory can be used to think about the ways in which these actors are shifting traditional boundaries of journalism.
