(In)visibilising professional groups: elements for a communicational approach

This introduction offers a communicational approach to the (in)visibilising of professional groups in the public sphere. In addition to the analyses devoted to the portrayal of labour that focus on the invisibilisation of “real work” and relations of production, we aim at suggesting new research issues. We have thus developed a theoretical and conceptual framework that breaks with substantialist definitions of professions. It replaces such definitions by a processual and relation-based approach that focusses on professionalisation processes. We suggest studying the ways social groups are represented and debated within the public sphere insofar as they contribute, through their own specific processes to the construction of professional groups and an affirmation of their professional standing.