The knowledge base of journalism: a key to the future

In this paper I propose the knowledge base as a fruitful way to apprehend journalism. With the claim that the majority of practice is anchored in knowledge – understood as 9 categories of rationales, forms and levels – this knowledge base appears as a contextual look at journalists’ knowledge. It is an analytical framework to delineate what is special in journalists’ knowledge. While the base is referred to in singular, it makes good sense to talk about journalistic knowledge in plural, because of the variation in the categories’ specific content and significance. This depends on the field position, time, and place. As an analytical framework, the knowledge base is limited to understand the practice of newspaper journalists, but, conversely, the knowledge base encompasses more general beginnings through the inclusion of overall structural relationships in the media and journalism and general theories on practice and knowledge. As the result of an abductive reasoning is a theory proposal, there is a need for more deductive approaches to test the validity of this knowledge base claim. It is thus relevant to investigate which rationales are included in the knowledge base of journalism, as the dimension does not have a series of exhaustive categories. This also applies to which characteristics the five knowledge rationales have in various parts of journalism and in various times. This includes, for example, what it means for journalists that something is worth doing. Or what do journalists perceive as useful. With regard to forms of knowledge, we lack evidence of what knowledge is explicit and of what is implicit implied in practice. Finally, which knowledge is at the reflexive level and how does it contribute to production of knowledge in a experimental practice by journalists? Wherein consists fixed knowledge and what kind of knowledge is it?