Communication Sciences from Scientific Realism: The Problem of Complexity and Fake News

Abstract

The study of the communication sciences from the perspective of scientific realism highlights the dual nature of these disciplines. They are social sciences and also sciences of the artificial. This duality has an impact when dealing with objectivity and truth, in order to avoid false news. Seen from the social sciences, objectivity leads to a reality independent of the mind that knows it —it allows us to speak of “facts”— and truth is understood mainly in epistemological terms (contents in correspondence with what is real). Considered from the sciences of the artificial, where objectivity is linked to action and practical truth, a pragmatic component prevails, since it now rests on designs oriented to objectives, processes and results.In the first case, issues about objectivity and truth lead directly to the semantic, epistemological and ontological dimensions, where scientific realism can provide criteria to focus professional journalistic practice. In the second case, by expanding human possibilities —especially through the use of the Internet—, the complexity of communicative phenomena increases. This environment of action and practical truth is more difficult to establish from scientific realism and requires a component of pragmatism.
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