METHODS OF COGNITIVE ACTIVITY

The concept of "method" in modern science denotes a system of scientifically-based actions necessary to solve problems of one type or another. Methods are formed in the process of activity on the basis of spontaneously found techniques - as a result of their understanding, systematization, selection according to the degree of effectiveness.

In accordance with the cognitive tasks faced by media workers, the methods of journalistic cognition of reality form two large groups. One includes methods for obtaining information (in other words, empirical, since they are based on the experience of interaction with the environment). The other is made up of the methods of comprehending the essence of what is happening (in other words, the theoretical ones, since they serve to reveal non-obvious connections of the facts of reality and are realized as a mental work).

The group of methods for obtaining information clearly distinguishes two subgroups: traditional journalistic methods and methods borrowed from specific social studies. They arise on a general basis, going back to the same phenomenal property of a person - the ability to perceive information through visual contacts, through verbal communication and through the development of sign-symbolic information products in written and printed form. However, there are significant differences between them. When studying a particular state of reality, traditional methods allow revealing its qualitative originality and further reproducing this originality in the text, and methods of sociological research are focused on its quantitative measurement and presentation of results in qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Awareness of the influence that the media have on social processes has caused in the professional environment a tendency to increase the reliability of information and conclusions. On the one hand, these materials widely publish the data of science, on the other hand, the very informative activity of journalists is enriched through the use of scientific methods. This led to the fact that today many of the methods of sociology are in service with journalism.

Traditional journalistic methods of obtaining information include the processing of documents, observation and conversation.

The elaboration of documents is a method that allows to obtain information of the most diverse nature already available in the “information storerooms” of society: from the fundamental principles of science to diary confessions that give an idea of ​​their author. A journalist can directly integrate them into his material, or it can be limited only to the study of the data found in order to get an idea of ​​what is happening. But in any case, work with documents is an essential moment of the creative process. It includes the search for a document, its development, verification of authenticity, reliability and authenticity.

Under the conditions of the “information explosion”, even in order to find the necessary sources, the journalist needs a high level of bibliographic literacy, a detailed idea of ​​the types and types of documents in society. At present, the Internet makes it much easier to access — the world-wide computer network, on whose servers a huge amount of data of the most diverse properties is stored.

The mastering of the document consists of three procedures: data extraction, their interpretation and fixation. Each of them requires orientation to certain rules, the most important of which is thoroughness and scrupulousness in work. It should be borne in mind that the document contains not only information specially entered into it, but also information that the compiler did not intend to include in it - for example, a message about the conditions for its creation, and the personal characteristics of the compiler. Hence the need to pay the most serious attention not only to the content, but also to the external characteristics of the document.

A difficult process is a document verification. She assumes consideration of him from three positions. First, it is necessary to establish its authenticity, that is, to make sure that it was really created by the author and under the circumstances that are named or implied in the text. Secondly, it is worthwhile to attend to the determination of the reliability of the information contained in it, that is, to make sure that they correspond to actual events. Thirdly, it is important to realize how reliable and representative this information is, whether they form a sufficient basis for serious conclusions. In all these cases, the journalist may need the help of specialists who are able to act as experts; it is necessary to foresee this possibility in advance by establishing appropriate contacts.

Observation, in contrast to the elaboration of documents, allows a journalist to receive information directly from the current reality - primary information. However, this happens only when observation is reinforced by a clear awareness of actual cognitive tasks, deliberate use of audiovisual contacts and reliance on certain standards of behavior that are perceived as rules. If there is no intentional action and awareness of tasks, our sensations merge into sensual images that are not fixed by consciousness with the necessary stability and therefore are not able to act as information necessary for cognitive purposes. In this regard, it is very important for a journalist in the process of his professional development to form an attitude towards the constant conscious and deliberate perception of reality, so that he can look - and see. After all, in essence, observation for him is a method of continuous use, the ownership of which largely determines his ability to respond quickly to changes in social life, the measure of his initiative and activity.

What kind of information can a journalist obtain through observation? First, the data expressing the essence of what is happening through its external, phenomenological side, on the basis of which conclusions are drawn about the significance of events, about people's relationships, about the level of their general and professional culture, about traditions, habits, social orientations - about everything that lends itself “Reading” on the signs accessible to perception. Secondly, the data transmitting the external characteristics of an object and therefore capable of appearing in the text as signs of the real situation, creating a “presence effect” for the reader. Their range is extensive: from the details of the appearance of the actors, their speech, gestures to the atmosphere in which the events take place.

The attention of a journalist in the course of observation is distributed between three relatively independent links of what is happening: as the next cognitive task appears, the individual’s behavior, the interaction of groups of people, the subject-material environment against which the events unfold occur in his field of vision. The volume of the observed is so large that it is necessary to fix the data with the necessary fullness of the arch, and this creates technical difficulties. The video camera helps the journalist, and the radio workers and newspaper workers can seriously train their memory. True, you can still develop a system of fixing in the notepad "support parts" - signs, which can be restored at the right time what was observed. However, this is most often neglected. And the memory - it can fail. Hence the inevitability of additional burden on the journalist when checking the observation data.

Verification - the stage is very responsible. The fact is that due to various physical and psychological reasons, there is a danger of an illusion of perception when observing - an inadequate reflection of the observed object. For example, in the rays of the setting sun, the foliage of the trees does not look green, but bronze or reddish, in the light of a fluorescent lamp, a person’s face appears lifelessly pale ... There are also possible interpretation errors related to the selectivity of our perception, which in turn depends on cultural, ideological, moral "equipment" actors. You watch the conversation of the Russian with the Bulgarian and see that both nod their heads. "Thank God, - you think, - it seems they agreed." But in reality it turns out that there is not: a nod in the Bulgarian symbolic-symbolic tradition is a sign of denial; You interpreted it on the basis of our tradition as a sign of agreement and turned out to be immune to other manifestations of disagreements between the interlocutors ... This is often the case.

A special kind of this method is self-observation. Here the attention of the journalist focuses on his own behavior, on external and internal factors that determine it, which gives access to information about unobvious, hidden processes characteristic of a given situation. But in this case it is impossible to do without checking, without correlating the results of self-observation with information obtained by other methods from other sources.

The third of the traditional methods of obtaining information - the conversation. It differs from ordinary dialogic communication in at least two significant circumstances. As a method of cognitive activity, the conversation is such an organized verbal interaction that is directed by the journalist with clearly aware tasks and involves the development of a strategy and tactics appropriate to the conditions of interaction.

With the help of a conversation, you can get a wide range of data, forming several segments, namely:

Ø actual data

Ø opinions (including emotional reactions),

Ø explanations

Ø offers and forecasts

Ø the speech signs of the interlocutor, conveying some features of his personality.

In addition, each segment is characterized by a rich variety. So, events (facts) can be positive and negative in their significance, observed by the interlocutor and unobserved, those in which he participated and in which he did not participate, from his own life, from the lives of other people, from the life of the collective, city, country. Opinions can also relate to different objects of reality, relate to different aspects of life - and this allows the correspondent to receive additional information. One thing that a person will say, say, about the events in which he participated, and quite another - what he thinks about a work of art or a socio-political situation. Here is the way to comprehend the personality of the interlocutor. The strategy of the conversation is based on this: understand the partner and outline the order of tasks that can be solved with his help. By tact, we mean the deliberate choice of the means of communication that most suit the given conditions and are capable of ensuring the solution of problems in the best possible way. Among these tools are the nature of the questions and their alternation, replicas and remarks of the journalist, his gestures and facial expressions, intonation and rhythm of the conversation, polemic techniques, various kinds of informational stimuli that help the interlocutor to relax, to overcome stiffness or unwillingness to speak. If the interviewer thoroughly prepares for the conversation, thinking through the strategy and tactics, if he learned to control the course of communication, timely notice the occurrence of barriers in it, if he owns a sufficient number of techniques by which such barriers are overcome, success is ensured. Well, if the interlocutor intentionally hides the data the journalist is asking for, then non-standard solutions are needed, which are not so easy to find. It is desirable, however, that they all be worthy in a moral sense and not go beyond the legal space.

Today, a dictaphone is most often used to record conversation data. Meanwhile, this is not always advisable: sometimes, it noticeably interferes with contact. Experienced journalists, along with a voice recorder, use a traditional notebook, and if he also binds the interlocutor, they can only get by with short notes during the conversation, “deciphering” them after the conversation has ended. We should not forget that the data obtained in the conversation, also need to be checked, involving the use of other sources of information.

From the expanded system of specific social research methods, journalism today has mastered content analysis, polls, long-term systematic observation and experiment better than others [8]. They will be discussed in the next chapter of the textbook.

The methods of comprehending the essence, that is, solving theoretical problems, for the journalist are the knowledge that he owns. When tasks are simple, you can cope with them through common sense - this refers to the ability of a person to reason based on personal everyday experience, resorting to logical operations that include correlation, recognition, discrimination, analysis, evaluation, synthesis. But often we are confronted with the need to deal with tasks that are much more complex, involving the penetration beyond the boundaries of the obvious. It requires thinking activity of a different nature. It can not be reduced to a chain of logical operations, nor to intuitive insights. Both the listed operations and intuitive insights serve to include the newly received information into the system of knowledge accumulated by the journalist by means of processing them according to the rules set by this knowledge. This is where the value of a journalist’s personality comes from: the richer his system of knowledge plays the role of methods for solving theoretical problems, the deeper, more precisely, the larger his thought.

According to the degree of universality, the theoretical knowledge necessary for a journalist can be represented in the form of three levels. The basic is philosophical knowledge, reflecting the general laws of development of nature and society. The cybernetic approach to the universe as a global self-regulating system makes it possible to overcome the limitations of individual philosophical concepts and to concentrate in the general theory of systems those positions, from which heights the springs of the development of nature and society hidden from the ordinary look can be seen. Good philosophical training for a journalist is the key to early wisdom.

The second level of universality is the knowledge of man and society, accumulated by the social sciences and humanities: history, psychology, sociology, social psychology, macroeconomics, law, ethics. The university program involves the development of all these disciplines by future journalists, but the professional significance of knowledge is not always emphasized. At the same time, they constitute the intellectual baggage that determines how much the symbolic-symbolic picture of the world created by the press is adequate to reality.

The third level is the knowledge accumulated by specific scientific disciplines. They play the role of methods of specialization for a journalist and are mastered in many ways independently. Of course, the developed system of special courses and special seminars, which the university offers to students, forms a good launching pad for specialization, but this is the launch pad. Further in-depth work on the chosen profile requires a serious effort from the journalist, and sometimes a second education.

And another crucial point: none of the listed methods, be it a means of obtaining information or comprehending the essence, can claim to be self-sufficient. Their use is determined by the principle of additionality. Focusing on it, in each particular case the journalist combines such a complex of cognitive methods, which will be the most effective.