Social Sciences and Communication: Disagreements and Convergences

Abstract

EDITOR'S NOTE 

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2025), this publication presents the inaugural lecture delivered by the author at the Fourth International Conference on Social Communication: Perspectives on Communication for Social Change and the Third OurMedia / NuestrosMedios Meeting, held at Universidad del Norte from May 19 to 21, 2003. This commemoration makes its dissemination particularly timely, not only because of the document’s historical and patrimonial value, but also because of the continuing relevance of its reflections for contemporary social and communication thought in Latin America. Taking as its point of departure the study by Jesús Martín-Barbero and Germán Rey on the formation of the field of communication studies in Colombia, the text examines the “great mismatch” at epistemological, ideological, and educational levels between the social sciences and communication studies, both historically grounded in Cartesian, positivist, functionalist, mechanistic, and deterministic paradigms that are now in crisis. In response, Fals Borda proposes postmodern and post-development open paradigms —systems theory, complexity, chaos, Batesonian holism, and humanist and ecological Marxism— as pathways toward convergence, highlighting Participatory Action Research (PAR) in particular as a methodological bridge between the two disciplines. Drawing on his dual experience as sociologist and journalist —shaped through the magazine Alternativa, Historia Doble de la Costa, and his work as correspondent for Brecha— the author advocates for a committed, dialogical, and sentipensante praxeology capable of articulating academic knowledge, popular communication, and social transformation. The lecture concludes with an ethical and political-critical call against the concentration of media power, “perpetual war,” and manipulative discourses shaping public opinion, in defense of peoples, victims of the global system of exploitation, and the ideals of peace, justice, and nonviolence. Recovering this text in the centenary year therefore constitutes an act of fidelity to an intellectual legacy that continues to illuminate current debates on the public role of the social sciences and communication.