Universality or commensurability: Can the latter bridge the culture gap?

Abstract

The commensurability / incommensurability (C/I) model, as an element of meta-discoursive practice, helps to focus attention on the culture specificity of journalism studies that influences journalistic practice; the configuration of the information field, as well as the public’s perception of the world (common–national worldview). Russian journalism studies and, more generally, the national style of making the news agenda, show a culture gap between ‘an ideal model’ of Western journalism and a Russian analogue within the national information field itself. Today’s Russian journalism and Russian journalism studies are not interested in culture-specific topics. The conflict between Western standards of journalism (and Western-oriented theories of journalism) and expectations of the public is increasingly deemed crucial. The inner cultural gap can be bridged using the C/I model if professional actors both in journalism practice and in journalism education accept three general lines of reflection: (a) recognition of the Western model of journalism as the only acceptable and institutionally supported model in Russian education; (b) investigation of the cultural divide between the practice of this model and the expectations of the Russian public; and (c) searching for their own specific model. The last option could emerge from the juxtaposition of native and ‘foreign’ informational culture. It would require a definition of ‘culture-specific’ in the C/I model allowing a description of the local understanding of journalism/communication within a meta-theory of communication.