Social epistemology as a new paradigm for journalism and media studies

Yigal Godler, Zvi Reich, Boaz Miller

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

Journalism and media studies lack robust theoretical concepts for studying journalistic knowledge generation. More specifically, conceptual challenges attend the emergence of big data and algorithmic sources of journalistic knowledge. A family of frameworks apt to this challenge is provided by “social epistemology”: a young philosophical field which regards society’s participation in knowledge generation as inevitable. Social epistemology offers the best of both worlds for journalists and media scholars: a thorough familiarity with biases and failures of obtaining knowledge, and a strong orientation toward best practices in the realm of knowledge-acquisition and truth-seeking. This article articulates the lessons of social epistemology for two central nodes of knowledge-acquisition in contemporary journalism: human-mediated knowledge and technology-mediated knowledge.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)213-229
Number of pages17
JournalNew Media and Society
Volume22
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 2020

Keywords

  • Echo chambers
  • epistemology
  • evidence
  • fact-checking algorithms
  • journalism
  • knowledge
  • news practices
  • testimony

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Communication
  • Sociology and Political Science

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