The article considers the development of scientific ideas about the meaning and the purpose of the journalism in the modern society. We focus on the conditionality of the scientific process by the whole course of social development determining the formulation of the problems in the theoretical analysis of journalism, as well as the philosophical reflection in the connection with the socio-political dynamics. In this aspect, we note the interaction of the philosophical and theoretical journalistic concepts that arose in the period from the 1950s-1960s to the present. The article analyzes approaches to construction of the theory of journalism as inherited from the past, in which Marxist-Leninist philosophy was canonized, as well as the modern or formerly approaches actualized during the cardinal changes in the social structure of the country. The two trends in the construction of the theory of journalism are also identified, one forms socially significant targets of the journalistic activity and functioning media, another one critically reflects the increase of the negativism in the information sphere of the public life. At the same time, the article emphasizes the clearly materialistic basis of the formation of the modern trends in the theory of journalism. In the analyzed works of the journalism theorists, we identify the aspects that are somehow related to the modern state of media space, in which the modification of the journalism takes place while preserving the generic qualities of the journalism.