La influencia de las noticias periodísticas en las actitudes morales de las audiencias: el análisis lingüístico de Ch. L. Stevenson y J. Searle

Abstract

Contemporary social leaders often claim that journalistic news’ actually influence audiences’ moral attitudes. However, there are only few field studies that cast some light on this Mass Media effect. The main obstacle seems to be discovering an appropriate theoretical normative benchmark capable to provide a philosophical definition of morality and also to enable researchers to integrate a number of midrange theories, which explain the process of moral attitudes’ formation (persuasion theories in Social Cognition and moral cognitive schemes in Moral Psychology). Only basing on a theoretical synthesis of a whole process of moral attitudes’ transformation, it is possible to formulate well founded hypothesis about the Mass Media influence in it. Philosophical frameworks used for this purpose usually draw on constructivism or discourse ethics. Both of them displayed significant limitations when bridging the gap between the notion of morality and the empirical Mass Media effects research. This article analyzes the workability of one more theoretical framework: the emotivism of Ch. L. Stevenson combined with J. Searle’s theory of intentionality.

DOI  http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/ag.34.2.2141