Journalistic Communication: Revisiting James Carey

This article revisits James Carey's scholarly work on the intersection between communication and journalism, and finds-hidden in his writings-three distinct, but interconnected models of communication. These models can be conceptualized by the means, methods and middlemen they use to accommodate communication between people. The first model is based on transportation, the second model is based on transmission and the third-and least described, discussed and developed model in James Carey's work-is based on a process of translation. In this third model, intermediaries, such as journalists, connect other people-willing or not-in written, verbal, audible or other types of communication. Each of the tree models carries with it new potentials and problems in terms of the communicative structures, streams and actors they prompt, and even if the models endure over time and space, the means, methods and middlemen might not.