THE GAP BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE IN JOURNALISM EDUCATION: THE CASE STUDY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA STUDIES IN NOVI SAD
Abstract
The paper considers the application of theoretical and practical skills of journalism education in the contemporary media environment that is mainly reduced to the market principles of infotainment. For quite some time the trend of tabloidization is shrinking the space for quality information and critical discussion about key topics of public interest, and additional problems arising more prominently in recent years are censorship and self-censorship. Media manipulation puts into question truthfulness and ethics of reporting, as well as the very role of a journalist as a corrective of social affairs and protector of public interest. This media situation largely undermines the approaches of journalism, thought in academic programmes, that treat journalism as a humanistic profession. Further, the development of communication technologies has brought new logics of media production and enabled distribution of content on various platforms. Following these observations and using in-depth interviews with the fiftheen graduates of journalism studies at the Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, the aim of this paper is to observe graduates' attitudes based on their work experience in different Serbian media and to establish the level of applicability of journalism theory and technique gained at faculties, in the Serbian media practice. On the basis of analysis several recommendations are formulated: programmes should clearly respond to the demans of the contemporary media production and social flows, practical education should be enchanced by rising the technical capactities of faculties and reorganizing in-house media practice, teachers should have a role of co-travellers in gaining knowledge and skills and not of authoritative professors, they should have adeqaute professional and scientific competences for the courses they teach, the course in media literacy should be introduced, not only at faculties but also in the earlier stages of education.
References
Car, V. & Zlateva, M. (2016). A Profession in turmoil – The Relevance of Education Reforms. In Car, V., Radojković, M. & Zlateva, M. (eds.), Requirments for modern journalism education – The perspective of students in South East Europe (pp. 1–11). Berlin - Sofia: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung E.V.
Car, V., Radojković, M. & Zlateva, M. (eds.) (2016). Requirments for modern journalism education – The perspective of students in South East Europe. Berlin - Sofia:Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung E.V.
Dragićević Šešić, M. & Stojković, B. (2007). Kultura: menadžment, animacija, marketing. Beograd: Clio.
Drašković, B. (2014). Spektakularizacija društva podržana tabloidizacijom masovnih medija. In Valić Nedeljković, D. & Pralica, D. (eds.), Digitalne medijske tehnologije i društveno-obrazovne promene 4 (pp. 325–333). Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet u Novom Sadu.
Hromadžić, H. (2009). Mediji i spektakularizacija društvenog sveta- Masmedijska produkcija „kulture slavnih“. Filozofska istraživanja, 120(4): 617–627.
Kelner, D. (2004). Medijska kultura. Beograd: Clio
Mondo (2013). Novinarstvo najgora profesija u 2013. Posećeno 10.06.2017. URL: http://mondo.rs/a573353/Info/Ekonomija/Novinarstvo-najgora-profesija-u-2013.html
Radojković, M. (2011). Obrazovanje novinara ili medijska pismenost?. In Veljanovski, R. (ed.), Verodostojnost medija: Dometi medijske tranzicije (pp. 299-307). Beograd: FPN i Čigoja štampa.
Radojković, M. & Milojević, A. (2016). Serbia: A market pushed by digital media – a challenge for curricula. In Car, V., Radojković, M. & Zlateva, M. (eds.), Requirments for modern journalism education – The perspective of students in South East Europe (pp. 136–163). Berlin/Sofia:Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung E.V.
Servaes, J. (2009). Back in to the Future? Re-inventing Journalism Education in the Age of Globalization. In Terzis, G (ed.), European Journalism Education (pp. 519–539). Bristol: Intellect.
Stojković, B. (2011). Profesionalni kapital i obrazovanje novinara. In Veljanovski, R. (ed.). Verodostojnost medija: Dometi medijske tranzicije (pp. 299–307). Beograd: FPN i Čigoja štampa.
Šadson, M. (1993). Sociologija proizvodnje vesti. Gledišta, 1–6: 15–29.
Rajnvajn, Lj. (1988). Stvaralaštvo novinara. Beograd: Naučna knjiga.
Turčilo, L. (2011). Ne/educiranost novinara i ne/vjerodostojnost medija u postratnoj i posttranzicijskoj BiH. In Veljanovski, R (ed.), Verodostojnost medija: Dometi medijske tranzicije (pp. 299–307). Beograd: FPN i Čigoja štampa.
Veljanovski, R. (2013). Obrazovanje novinara između tehnološkog determinizma i sistema vrednosti. In Valić Nedeljković, D. & Pralica, D. (ed.), Digitalne medijske tehnologije i društveno-obrazovne promene (pp. 351–361). Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet u Novom Sadu.
Copyright
Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media.
Licensing
The published articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA). It is allowed to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), a link to the license is provided, it is indicated if changes were made and the new work is distributed under the same license as the original.
Users are required to provide full bibliographic description of the original publication (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages), as well as its DOI code. In electronic publishing, users are also required to link the content with both the original article published in CM: Communication and Media and the licence used.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Self-archiving policy
Authors are permitted to deposit author’s publisher's version (PDF) of their work in an institutional repository, subject-based repository, author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), at any time after publication.
Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and the Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.