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Abstract:
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This master thesis is exploring the formation and the transformation of the concept of journalism
over time and further explores the changing concept of the journalist in reference to the contingency
formula set in each of the analyzed periods. On the basis of Niklas Luhmanns social system theory,
the term journalism or journalist isn’t situated as uniquely based concepts, but is examined as meaning-
changing concepts, differing over time depending on their semantic constructions. By examining
the changing in semantics, it is possible to describe how the terms are set differently both over
time and in time and hereby, to reflect over the future role of the journalist. The way to explore the problem is through a bilateral analysis which sets off in both a diachronic
and a synchronous direction. The diachronic analysis tries to enlighten how a concept of journalism
as a whole has changed over time as a difference set between meaning and condensed meaning. As
the study show, the concept of journalism is structural connected to various functional systems
ranging from censorship practices in the first period moving along a dominant political coupling.
From there, the concept is slowly changing to a more economical character and at the end; the term
reveals a connection to a scientification of journalism.
With these results in mind, the synchronous analysis is focusing on the concept of the journalist
contingency formula set differently in each of the different periods. The difference constructing the
observations will be set as term in regard to its opposite term. Here I will explore how the ideal
form of a journalism concept derives from being unilaterally connected to despotism. In the second
period, the idealistic concept is leaning towards a more agitatorical contingency formula. In the
economical period, the concept for the journalist is separated in two different terms: one of contemplation
moving away from the agitators and slowly – when the economy finds itself being pressured
– a different term based on a more rational journalist concept. Finally, the meaning of the term is
based on a concept of learning, where the journalist ideal is influenced by both science and education
as self-education towards a more self-referential contingency formula than earlier proposed
concepts. |
