The Turn towards New Criticalities in the Study of Media, Communication and Journalism

Using Boltanski’s (2011) idea that critique is the contestation of social and cultural orders, different ways of such contestations in the social sciences and the humanities and in media, communication and journalism research are mapped. Four overarching orientations towards doing critique are identified – open, reforming, resonant and emerging. The critical is seen to reside in a wide landscape covering many forms of critique articulating different criticalities. It is argued that these developments in different research fields, together with new ways of looking at and relating these fields, shows a turn towards new criticalities. A communicative critique is also advocated as an instrument for more dialogue across divides of ontology and epistemology, theories and methods, in the mapping of how the critical is articulated in the social sciences and the humanities as well as in the studies of media, communication and journalism. Thereby, the article is an invitation to consider the relevance of critique and criticality, also for the post-critical movement and scholars not labelling themselves critical.