• norsk
    • English
  • English 
    • norsk
    • English
  • Login
View Item 
  •   Home
  • Fakultet for samfunnsvitenskap (SAM)
  • SAM - Institutt for journalistikk og mediefag
  • View Item
  •   Home
  • Fakultet for samfunnsvitenskap (SAM)
  • SAM - Institutt for journalistikk og mediefag
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Journalism’s epistemic crisis and its solution: Disinformation, datafication and source criticism

Steensen, Steen
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Accepted version
Thumbnail
View/Open
Journalism+anniversary+paper.pdf (426.3Kb)
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10642/6572
Date
2018-12-10
Metadata
Show full item record
Collections
  • SAM - Institutt for journalistikk og mediefag [317]
Original version
Steensen S. Journalism’s epistemic crisis and its solution: Disinformation, datafication and source criticism. Journalism - Theory, Practice & Criticism. 2019;20(1):185-189   https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884918809271
Abstract
Journalism in many cultures is today in an epistemic crisis. The mains drivers of this crisis are discourses of disinformation and the general datafication of society, which combined render dubious the ways in which journalism assesses sources and information in its production of knowledge. Basic journalistic competencies related to information literacy—which constitute a key prerequisite for journalism’s ability to establish trust, authority and accountability—are out of tune with the challenges of modern information societies. If the institutions and professionals of journalism do not update their information literacy competencies, and if the public doesn’t have faith in journalism’s ability to master such competencies, journalism will lose its societal relevance, simply because it loses its ability to produce trustworthy knowledge.

In this short essay, I will briefly discuss the challenges for journalism posed by discourses of disinformation and datafication. I will argue that these challenges push journalism towards an epistemic reorientation beyond the right/wrong and true/false dichotomies. Such a reorientation can begin with the further development and normalization of source criticism as attitude and practice in journalism. Being a common methodological and epistemic concept in historiography and information science, source criticism constitutes a more constructivist attitude towards information literacy, which, I will argue, is exactly what journalism needs.
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Series
Journalism - Theory, Practice & Criticism;Volume: 20, Issue: 1
Journal
Journalism - Theory, Practice & Criticism

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit
 

 

Browse

ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournalsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournals

My Account

Login

Statistics

View Usage Statistics

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit