For more than a century, people who study work, occupations, and society more generally have been interested in what distinguishes a profession from an occupation and how an occupation becomes a profession. Over time, theorists have provided different answers to these questions and proposed different processes of occupational professionalization. What underlies all of the theories
The professionalization of journalism refers to the process by which a category of workers engaged in reporting and commentary in the public media on current events and ideas achieves the status of the occupational professional. Key issues in understanding the professionalization of journalism center on the difficulties in defining “professionalization” itself; the historical differences between
The term “professionalization” refers to the way in which occupations become recognized as professions, usually explained by a range of factors related to the improvement of services offered and status enjoyed. The precise meaning of the term depends on the approach taken to defining the concept of “profession.” Three theoretical perspectives are in evidence in