Make up assignment:

The theory of Science for Social Science

How does anything starts? The most certain explanation and belief is that, at the beginning
everything starts with an idea: movement, reaction, social contract, news article or a story,
and, of course, the theory.
The ideas which Susan Sontag wrote in her essay On Photography forever changed the
meaning of photography in our daily lives. Marshal McLuhan idea on a world as a global
village completely shifted the direction of the media and the influence they had on the
society. Jurgen Habermass with his concept of public sphere changed the way we are
observing and counting on the audience.
The ideas that we should combine approaches and disciplines in order to get better results and
understanding, is not anything new, even in the field of social science and their scientists.
Even Immanuel Kant worked as philosopher and the geographer. But in a desire of a social
science to be more like the natural sciences, to be more precise and exclusive and less
speculative, the borders between disciplines started to rise at one point. However, with the of
growth of different and new social problems that cannot be solved with only one discipline or
one branch of science, the borders between disciplines started to delete it selves. So for
example, psychology started to be used as a discipline which inspects work place in order to
raise the productivity of the workers. Post-disciplinary studies emerge when scholars forget
about disciplines and whether ideas can be identified with any particular one; they identify
with learning rather than with disciplines, Sayer (5:1999) is a perfect explanation of what is
happening when scientists decide to work together, to combine their theories and ideas.
The world is constantly changing, developing and growing, one state becomes two, and two
states become one, so why shouldnt science overlap as well? Why shouldnt media scholars
have the same access to, for example, the theory of social constructionism as their colleagues
from political sciences study? I do respect idea of clarity, but above all I believe in
accessibility and the chance that social scientists can work together in order to improve and
further develop the world. Isnt that what all of us is trying to achieve after all?
I am a journalist. It is only natural for me to ask the questions about the world around me. And
that is what I think the social science is doing as well: raising questions which are the crucial
for our understanding of the reality around us and the notions that every day brings. And that
is the main goal of science, by my opinion, to offer us perspective but also tools for the
solutions of the issues that are being introduced to us with those perspectives. And that is by
my understanding of what theory of science is: set of tools derived from history long
discussions and social discoveries, which have been influenced by various segments from
peoples experiences through the wars that have been changing notion of social science up
until todays shift and development in technology. I believe that, today, the world we are
living in is changing the science as we speak and that all of those changes are influenced by
developments in digital technology: it is that development, the digital improvements that each
and every one of us can experience that are bringing new meanings to already known

disciplines. But also they are opening space for new branches of science to grow. It is with
that growth combined with interdisciplinary science and various approaches that we can seek
deeper truth in our realities.
For example, when discussing about the influence that other discipline has on media and
communication, one has to mention the use of social constructionism theory on the way we
watch/see the news on TV screens for example.
The notion of social constructionism rejects the idea of objectivity as something that cannot
be reached because everyone has its own reality which is influenced by ones experience,
personal identity, their past and present. But for example core of journalism lies on the idea of
objectivity as a basic principle and the highest standard the journalist has to obey. Maybe
someone from the media studies or a journalist for that matter would reject the idea that full
objectivity does not exists and would rule this perspective as a false one and not at all relevant
for media studies.
But as somebody who has been introduced with of the theory of social constructionism, it
became clear to me that not only objectivity as such does not exist in theory, it also doesnt
exist in media. Each one of us creates our own notion of reality, and so does the journalists.
By picking this photo and not the other one, by choosing one frame over the other, this source
and not someone else, by selecting what will be focused and what not journalists are
constructing their own idea of the certain event. Yes it still runs on the facts, it still reflect
reality. But what constructionism taught us is to ask: whose reality? Maybe this isnt the
clearest example, or the best one, but this is the illustration of my understanding what will
happen when we are combining disciplines. And what is happening is that we are able to ask
this kind of questions, we are able to look beyond the novice rules and basic principles of one
science and we will be able to have valid tools.
And this is what I hope to gain from this course: the new perspective, new tools which I will
be then able to use examine text inside the media. At this stage I know for sure that concepts
of phenomenology, the social constructionism and hermeneutics can be out of great help in
observing for example media text, but also audiences responses, the influence media has on
certain movements and actions in the world. From perspective of social constructionism and
discourse analysis we can inspect for example the idea behind user generated content and
citizen journalism: are they helping media in creation of content, or do they participate in
false representation of the reality?
The more I read on different perspectives and the isms the more I am accepting different set of
eyes which I use to observe the media. Now, after social constructionism and after seeing for
example false war images of Ukraine conflict, fabricated and wrongly published by pro
Russian media, I ask the question: what kind of reality will those photos produce? Does it
matter that they were false? Or is the more important conclusion that by planting the false
images from one war as the other, different war, we are creating the notion that at the end it
doesnt matter, because war is always the same. And by doing this, one has to conclude that
integration of coursework into daily life wont stop when the course stops. Maybe it will stop

once I find the answers I am looking for. But, isnt the core of the science and the journalism
for that matter that one should never stop to ask the questions.