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January 9, 2004
Toward a field theory of journalism, part 3...
A noetic field is a closed system in the sense that any change to the field changes the system. Again, a noetic field is an epistemological system defining: 1) what can and cannot be known, 2) the nature of the knower, 3) the nature of the relationships among the knower, the known, and the audience, and 4) the nature of language.
At any given time there is a dominant noetic field and, therefore, a dominant rhetoric.
Because journalism is an important discoursive practice in our culture, it necessarily fits the dominant noetic field. Journalistic practice conforms to and establishes the dominant noetic field.
Over the next four installments of this series, I will offer a quick examination of how journalism fits the noetic field in terms of the four points listed above. In other words, for journalism: 1) What can be known and how do we know it? 2) Who is the knower and why? 3) What is the relationship among the journalist, the "facts," the source, and the audience. 4) How does journalistic language create this relationship and deliver the news?
For the balance of the series I am bracketing punditry out of the analysis. Pundits operate within the dominant noetic field. But there is an aspect of the field that I do not wish to consider at this point: Our dominant noetic field treats opinion as a personal possession.
For example: Op-ed editors will often defend an obnoxious columnist by claiming that an outrageous statement is "his opinion." In our dominant noetic field, opinions are personal, not communal, property. By claiming such, the editor lets readers know that what the columnist says does not constitute journalistic knowledge. And, because we value individualism, the columnist has a "right" to "his" opinion. The columnist's work falls outside of the process of "objective" reporting, which creates journalistic knowledge. Their ideas belong to themselves and the reader must decide what to believe. This is why crackpots keep their jobs.
You can begin to see those four points working in that hypothetical example. In this series, however, I want to deal only with that product that comes from the objective process of reporting and editing. Readers are also left to decide about such a product. But the type of information, and the journalist's relationship to it, are quite different compared to the columnist.
Prior entries in this series:
Toward a field theory of journalism
Why a "field" metaphor
Posted by acline at January 9, 2004 10:21 AM | | Spotlight