Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Mediatization and journalism 45 cal and economic liberalism. The newspaper was a republican entity. Within this scope, it would even be possible to conceive journalism as a broader political project than the “newspaper” per se. Back in 1920, the pragmatist educator and philosopher John Dewey used to say that journalism should go beyond the mere objective account of events (the model in which the press “reports” and the reader consumes) to become a means of edu- cation and public debates. Promoting direct dialogue between citizens and journalists, the journalistic activity, more than reporting, would have at its heart the promotion of a public “conversation”. In the virtuality of this conversation, the dogmas of “people’s sovereignty”, that underlie the modern idea of a na- tion, are increasing. This function, which is the intrinsic virtue of the press, ethically supports the communication pact implicit in the relationship between the media and its receiving communi- ty. Whether in written or electronic journalism, the journalist’s duty to their audience (therefore, their ethical commitment) would be to say the truth recognized as such by common sense, as long as the statement corresponds to a fact. The virtue of this public verification regime derives from the precept of civil liberties instituted by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. It was in this way that the free press could be recognized as a work of the modern objec - tive spirit and, thus, constitute an ethical-political background that would make the phenomenon of sensationalist journalism scandalous anywhere in the world, or would render the falsifica - tion or cover-up of factual truth reprehensible by the journalist’s moral conscience. Politics and culture presided over the reinter- pretation of ancient koiné in 18th-century Europe. The eruption of this new reality in history was one of the effects of the trans- formation of production relations (the Industrial Revolution), which was in line with the expansion of bourgeois democracy. Education and culture were strategic (in the same vein as Rous- seau’s theoretical and political proclamations) as instruments of the concept of democracy as a value and as an end, and no longer just as a mechanism of government. The spread of dogmas of “people’s sovereignty” demanded the free flow of ideas, which raised the concept of public space.