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Internet Discourse 243

does not hesitate to call reproduction of the power mechanism cul-
tural capital. In contrast with most poststructuralists or postmod-
ernists who tend to avoid using Marxist terminology such as capital,
Bourdieu extends the concept of capital into the areas of culture and
symbols. Although postmodernists see a potentially dangerous mod-
ernist view in Bourdieu, he is critical of structuralists including Fou-
cault and Derrida as well as Lévi-Strauss and Saussure. The point
that Bourdieu makes against structuralism is that it eliminates the
will power of subject. By contrast, Bourdieu emphasizes the impor-
tance of human practice in the reality of everyday experience.
In order to scrutinize human practice, Bourdieu focuses on the
symbolic power of discourse. This is similar to Foucault’s conceptual
framework of discourse analysis. The uniqueness of Bourdieu, how-
ever, is that he underscores strategy, whereas other poststructuralists
avoid presenting and analyzing future plans and acting strategies.
Bourdieu’s habitus is a kind of strategy that is accumulated and in-
ternalized by individuals’ experiences. It may sound deterministic
from the poststructuralist point of view, but what Bourdieu empha-
sizes is the importance of individuals’ practices in their everyday lives
as these build up society and history. As Bourdieu illustrates, habitus
has an orchestra effect (1977). Diverse interests and experiences of in-
dividuals are integrated into a structural practice, or habitus. Yet, this
concept of a habitus is far from linear or deterministic in a simple
sense: though they are in a habitus, individuals can adopt distinctive
strategies (Bourdieu 1979).
Compared to Foucault’s inclusive concept of power, Bourdieu
clearly views power as capital. Bourdieu’s concept of capital, how-
ever, does not stop at Marxist materialism. He takes into considera-
tion cultural capital as well as economic capital. Cultural capital
includes symbolic and non-institutionalized power. Cultural capital
contributes to maintaining the existing authority by generating
meconnaissance (misconsciousness) of the majority (Bourdieu 1982).
It legitimizes existing authority, however arbitrary such authority
may be. Cultural capital induces individual practices in conformity
with habitus. This conformity is not simply a one-way repression,
however: there are constant symbolic struggles in a society.
Education and language are the most prominent examples of cul-
tural capital. Even though education and language are practiced
through the voluntary participation of individuals, Bourdieu argues
that they contain symbolic violence. This is similar to Foucault’s con-
cept of positive power. In the contemporary world, power is not exer-
cised by means of a repressive mechanism. Rather, individuals