Knowledge of journalism in the hermeneutic circle

Abstract

In order to identify the nature of journalism knowledge, I consider it basic to begin with the simplest questions: where do the issues which motivate the theories of journalism come from? What is the position of the journalism study field within the Social Sciences? The point of view which places the production of scientific knowledge in a hermeneutic circle seems appropriate for dealing with these questions. For three reasons: a) because it transforms science – strange and distant – into something familiar and close at hand, which, not speaking the everyday language, is capable of communicating to us its discoveries and its limits; b) because it considers the production of knowledge to be a social practice which is carried out through dialogue with the world; and c) because it teaches us that we cannot comprehend any of the parts (the "discoveries" of the different disciplines) unless we have some comprehension of how the whole "works" and vice versa, we cannot comprehend the entirety unless we have some comprehension of how its parts "work". The hermeneutic reflection, therefore, seeks to transform the abstract in the letters written by Voltaire, Juan Luis Cebrián and alberto Dines, i find a wisdom originating from experience which is transformed into knowledge for the practice of the profession. in this wisdom there are signs that journalism dialogues with the disciplines of the social sciences and of language, at the same time that their authors point out the issues which will be transformed into the subject for study according to the theories of journalism. From the wisdom of experience to scientific practice and from the latter to the practice of the profession there is a circulation of knowledge which, in this article, i place in the perspective of the hermeneutic circle indicated by Boaventura de souza santos.