New (and old) Trends in Journalism Research

Abstract

In this paper, I look back to the vast area of communication sciences, that fi rst arrived in the university sphere by means of journalism subjects. In reality, one of the fi rst academic magazines in the area of communication sciences was a magazine concerning journalism. During the 1940´s and 1950´s, journalism research was at the center of the renowned studies by Lazarsfeld. In the years that follow, Journalism study´s dependence on sociological inquiries and content analysis was left behind in the explosion of studies that took place in the 1960´s and 70`s. In the more recent years, the explosion of studies of Journalism was marked by the recourse to a multiplicity of new methodologies (such as, for example, the ethno-methodological approach, discursive analysis, focus groups), by the emergence and growing infl uence of television, by the interest relating to journalism´s ideological role, as well as by the appearance of new paradigms for understanding the news.