Ethics for rhetorics: the "New Enlightenment" and media

Abstract

This article faces an ethic and epistemological discussion related to the problem of the truth in the media. The author suggests that we should abandon the belief that journalists can transmit the "truth" as an adequation between what he or she says and the things that happen (adequatio rei). It would be more honest to recognize that, as the transmission of a definitive truth is impossible, what they transmit are partial visions and versions. In this epistemological turn, the author argues an ethical proposal for the social communication and the media based on the discussion and interchange of arguments in order to persuade through rhetorical technics better than to offer "the truth".