Smiley Face - Bourdieu

Bourdieu is the first theorist to take ideology and hegemony etc in society and apply it to an actual media field: journalism and television. While all of the previous theorists look at media,signs, theorists and so on from an objective view, Bordieu connects it to specific media genres.
The purpose of the article it to look at the over-powering force of television and how it acts as a threat to other forms of media, such as print. As we all know, for beliefs to form in society they must become universal and accessible by all (reflecting on the work of Marx for a moment there) and this article conveys how television has become the prominent source for news. This is particularly noticed in the defining of the 'agenda' through television. One of the articles in CMC 200 recognizes the framing of the agenda in media via the spreading of fear leading to the public handing over their faith in the government. This vicious cycle of 'agenda-setting' clearly depicts the further threat television has on print media - ever since television became the dominant for it was given the luxury to determine the public's opinion, which is also determined by the journalist. Furthermore, the journalist is becoming pressured to move from print media to television. Therefore, print media faces extinction in the near future due to the over-powering forces of technology and 'the cult of the new' (thank you Habermas).
Along with the power of television over other forms of media, we have the need for audience ratings and validity of news to the maintenance of power. Bourdieu claims that "Human interest stories create a political vacuum" (332). This quote caught my attention specifically because of the influx of 'missing children' stories that have hit the front-stage of media over the past couple of years. These stories, though terrible and do deserve attention, take credit away from the news that follows. The news should act as an un-biased observer of the world and reflect the mot relevant stories to its audience, but it is difficult to witness this with 24-7 surveillance on the case of the latest missing child as opposed to news on the economoy that is important for everyone to know.
Television has reigned the stage of media for a while now, but with the dominance of anecdotal and over-publicized stories on the screen, does it represent the fall of TV as the leading media field?