Of what field of journalism are we talking about?

Abstract

To think of journalism as having, or lacking, its own theoretical status, somewhat dependant on conceptual and theoretical paradigms borrowed from the human and social sciences, has become an important issue for the academic discussions. Tentative demarcations of an autonomous scientific field of research for journalism seem to ignore the epistemological debate of the bigger field in which journalism is inserted, that of Communication. This article aims to analyze different concepts of field used in this debate criticizing (a) the indiscriminate use of these terms and (b) the equivocal effort to reduce the object of study of the Journalism to practices of profession or in promoting fragmentation of its object.