Globalizing communication/journalism, ending fragmentation within philosophy, and analyzing history as life-spans in samsara

Abstract

This article is an attempt to expand the theoretical, methodological, and historical boundaries of communication/journalism studies to suit the beginning phase of the contemporary Digital Era. First, this article suggests that communication scholars should consistently use the term ‘globalization’ to describe the current endeavor to apply the horizontally integrative macro-history approach to produce a universally acceptable body of knowledge encompassing communication/journalism studies. Second, it demonstrates the potential of deploying the principles of Buddhist phenomenology, which broadly reflects the major aspects of Eastern philosophy, to ‘globalize’ communication/journalism studies by dismantling the unrealistic separation of science from philosophy, as well as the division of philosophy into epistemology, ontology, axiology, etc. Third, it demonstrates the possibility of identifying global developments in communication as a series of life-spans similar to the Buddhist wheel of becoming ( bhavacakra) circling around our perpetual cyclic existence ( samsara). It concludes by asserting that because existence is coterminous with communication, tracing communication history will require a global effort that extends the methods of inquiry beyond empiricism to cover quantum mechanics and phenomenology.