Between the classroom and the newsroom ? How Austria?s journalism students deal with diverging demands found in educational and professional contexts
Sprache des Vortragstitels:
Englisch
Original Tagungtitel:
IAMCR 2016 - Memory, Commemoration, and Communication - Looking back, looking forward
Sprache des Tagungstitel:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
?A large part of journalism is simply craftsmanship, [?] and that is not something you learn at university.? ? Editor in Chief of an Austrian newspaper
Recent studies argue that less than one third of the Austrian journalists agree that journalism education ? at least at a tertiary level ? is beneficiary for the job and that close to 65% of the currently active journalists never acquired a university degree (cf. Hummel et al. 2013 or Kaltenbrunner et al. 2007). Using Bourdieu?s terminology, it can be argued that the enduring doxa in the field is tied to the idea that the job is primarily craft, where talent is more important than knowledge or formal education.
Despite this there are up to 8000 students who are currently enrolled in journalism related programs in- and outside of Austria?s universities and data shows that at least a quarter of them specifically plans to realize a career in journalism. And nearly all of those aspiring journalists are doing internships, working (part-time) jobs or freelancing for media during their time at university. Therefore, students are very often confronted with the idea that their field of studies has little to no relevance for the profession they hope to join later on, while meeting a large number of people that has no experience with tertiary education at all.