Аннотация:The article deals with understanding the person in the journalistic creative work methodology. The textual nature of social
action is proved. Notional restrictions of understanding in journalism and functional peculiarities of journalism in the
hermeneutics context are revealed. The forms of hermeneutics research in the journalistic search, the author’s philosophical
hermeneutics and creative hermeneutics from the point of view of the compositional structure of a work are suggested as
fundamentals of journalism hermeneutics. The implementation of mass communication effect model is suggested for the
transition from understanding the person to understanding the social processes. The communication consequences and social
actions in social life are regarded as the effect. The correlations with other people’s actions suggest both understanding the
sense of these actions and communication (including the indirect one) among the carriers of such senses. At the individual
level the social action as the communicative effect manifests itself as a social role – a standard response corresponding to the
acting person’s status. The identity as experience of belonging to a certain group is formed on the status basis. At the group
level the identities demonstrate integral effects which are the results of different varieties of communities’ communicative
compatibility. Methodical solution of the problem of understanding consists in the time and attention structure analysis.
Understanding as the purpose and the result of journalistic activity presupposes including explanation and interpretation into
the complex of journalistic functions. A separate line of research of understanding problem in journalism and mass
communication is acquisition of motivation complex of the author’s success which should be understood as the essential
feature of mass media efficiency. The structure, form and efficiency of journalistic work depend upon both objective factors of
socio-political medium of mass media functioning, information production technology and the author’s subjective choice of
fundamentals of activity conditions, attitude to his role behavior at the stage of information collection and work publishing
targets. Fundamentals include reflective, standard, pragmatic and emotional conditions.