Inte för alla -­‐ En kvantitativ studie om journaliststudenters representation av allmänheten i Nicaragua

In our bachelor thesis we have strived to examine the representation of journalism students in Nicaragua. The freedom of press is much lower compared to Sweden and the journalist profession is protected by a certificate. It is also a high level of corruption within the country. Our investigation concerns who has access to the journalist education and the goal is to compare that with the public in Nicaragua. To be able to examine the representation among the journalism students we have chosen seven different aspects to examine, the sex of the student, witch social class they belong to, their academic background, religion, ethnicity, geographical belonging and political view. In order to compare the journalism students to the public we collected information about the public and investigated the same aspects of representation as among the journalism students. The question of representation becomes interesting when compared to the possibility or restriction of access to the journalistic field. The thesis focuses on the social construction within the group of journalism students and the social construction of the Nicaraguan society. To identify the social structure within the group we have used Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. His concepts of habitus, social fields and symbolic capital have helped us to identify the positions of journalism students within the field of journalism education. It has also helped us to discern which social positions that is more common within the field and which groups have difficulty gaining access to the field. In order to reach our thought out exam group we spent one month in the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, handing out a survey to journalism students on three different universities. The result was 594 surveys to bring back home to Sweden. These surveys are the heart of our thesis and from them we have gathered information about the student’s representation. Our thesis shows that the journalism students in Nicaragua to a very high extent come from families with academic traditions and that their income is higher than the average Nicargauan family. This need for economic and cultural capital determines who can access the field of journalism education and from there the field of the journalistic profession. This means that the field of journalism in Nicaragua is not open for all but is limited by your socioeconomic background, which is predetermined from birth