Randall Johnson (1993) 'Editor's Introduction: Pierre Bourdieu on Art, Literature and Culture' in, Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 1-25.
 
Pierre Bourdieu (1993) 'The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed' in Randall Johnson, ed., The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, London: Polity Press, pp. 29-73.

Chris Jenks (1993) 'Introduction: The Analytic Bases of Cultural reproduction Theory' in Jenks, ed. Cultural Reproduction, London: Routledge.
 

Pierre Bourdieu is an influential thinker in the cultural realm, and the role of culture in the reproduction of social structures. 'Cultural reproduction' is Bourdieu's term for this, that Chris Jenks (in a book using that term) seeks to revivify. To Jenks, the concept of cultural reproduction articulates a dynamic process between 'on the one hand, the stasis and determinacy of social structures and, on the other, the innovation and agency inherent in the practice of social action. Cultural reproduction allows us to contemplate the necessity and complementarity of continuity and change in social experience.' (1993: 1) To Bourdieu, social structures are embedded in the most ordinary aspects of everyday life and in 'higher' cultural practices such as art, music and literature (particularly in his book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 1983). Much of this work comes from his analysis of the field of education, that appears to ensure the reproduce the power of the dominant class rather than undermine it. He broadly sees pedagogic practice as perpetuating a general social tendency towards repression - as 'symbolic violence' (Jenks, 1993: 11). Similarly, the symbolic power invested in art and cultural consumption is seen to be closely associated with economic and political power and authority. He sees this in terms of an economy of practices.

The majority of commentators fail to recognise the positive generative aspects of Bourdieu's concepts. To Jenks, this is an over-concentration on the copying aspect of the reproduction metaphor at the expenses of regeneration or synthesis (1993: 2). Here the dynamical aspects of culture and of reproduction are overlooked. Culture is emergent, and is a social process built upon action, process and growth. 

Habitus:
The concept of 'habitus' has some relevance here as Bourdieu's alternative to some of the problems associated with consciousness and subjectivity (associated with Marxism and Structuralism, such as false consciousness and a subjectivity constructed through discourse). He compares habitus to Chomsky's generative grammar to emphasise the creative and active capacities of human agents but without the associated difficulties in Chomsky of the universal mind. Habitus accounts for the ways in which agents can act in specific ways without simply being bound by or following rules. It is more a set of 'dispositions' that generate practices and perceptions through 'structured structures', almost as if by second nature (by 'sens practique', practical sense). Bourdieu says: 
'The habitus is not only a structuring structure, which organizes practices but also a structured structure: the principle of division into logical classes which organizes the perception of the social world is itself the product of internalization of the division into social classes.' (1984: 170) 
A good example might be language, and the ways in which certain forms of language bind people together in groups, or style in sub cultures (closely associated 'cultural unconscious', another of Bourdieu's concepts). Thus habitus is the 'principle that regulates the act,' typified as 'the system of modes of perception, of thinking, of appreciation and of action' (Bourdieu in Jenks, 1993: 14). 

The important point is that agents, knowingly or not, generate practices in this way, and they generate practices in a broader set of social relations that Bourdieu calls the 'field' (to describe a social formation). Each field is a dynamic concept, influenced by its agents but relatively autonomous from other fields. This owes something to systems theory in that each element (or agent) is linked to all other elements in the system (or field) and functions accordingly (produces meanings).

Cultural Capital:
Bourdieu defines 'cultural capital' as a form of knowledge, dispositions, an internalised code that equips the social agent with competency to appreciate or decipher a cultural artefact or relations. A work of art has meaning only in as much as it is a code that can be decoded. An artist invests cultural capital in the form of knowledge and skill in a project to reap maximum 'profit' from participation. Clearly cultural capital is accumulated through the agents activity in social formations and institutions, and distributed unevenly just like economic capital but separate to it. For instance, economic success does not predetermine cultural success and this is characterised in the phrase: 'the economic world reversed' to describe cultural production (Bourdieu, 1993: 29). The economic filed is one field amongst many for Bourdieu and so not determining in any sense.

Fields (and Formalism): 
Fields follow a structural logic but are not the same - but importantly, the relationship is homologous across all fields (Bourdieu, 1993: 44 - but this is not to say that the structure of works are simply reflections of the social structure, or indeed that an artist might be expected to work on behalf of a specific class as in the case of Benjamin's 'The Author as Producer'). Through the concept of fields, some general analytical points can be drawn: to Bourdieu, the meaning of a work of art lies neither in its text nor in its social structure but in its field, the history and structure of the field, and the relationship of that field to power - all this at the same time. What constitutes art, and its aesthetic value, is bound up with these complex social and institutional frameworks. Thus, this is to be taken as a criticism of formalism, structuralism and deconstruction as simply not taking enough account of the fact that formal properties are themselves socially and historically bound. In this, the system of works is privileged over the system of systems according to Bourdieu, and avoiding to seek in the 'system itself the principle of its dynamics' (1993: 33). This is clearly an important criticism for the production of software art - that makes explicit its systemic nature at every level of its operation. Any work of art must be considered in terms of its production and consumption: the agent or producer produces in the field in which what the producer produces is granted value and legitimised as worthy of that field of practice (thus Benjamin, whilst drawing upon Russian Formalism avoid this problem in 'The Author as Producer'). In a sense, this is simply placing the work of art in the social relations and conditions that sustains it as art in the first place. Critics, academics, historians, publishers of art all serve this mediating role and sustain the system of collective belief. Accordingly, any inquiry must extend to all those who contribute to this result: those agents who conceive the idea, those who execute it, those who provide the equipment, and materials, and those who make up the audience for the work (Bourdieu, 1993: 35).  

Therefore, any analysis (like this one) must not be too external (eg. Marxist) or internal (eg. Formalist), subjective or objective, but both (both-and rather than either-or). [note: this relates to the ideas of Lefebvre and dialectics] To stress the point: works of art must be analysed both in relation to other works, in relation to the structure and history of the field, and to the specific agents involved.