the gap between online journalism education and practice
DESCRIPTION
Presented by Ying Du and Ryan Thornburg to the 2010 AEJMC conference in Denver. The gap between journalism education and journalism practice has long been the focus of debates in the field. Amid the emergence of online journalism in the 1990s, the profession's criticism of journalism education has continued unabated. It is ever important to revisit the old “gap” issue in this new context. This study attempts to examine the discordance between education and practice by comparing online journalism professionals and educators’ perceptions of key skills, concepts, and duties for online journalism. Findings of the twin surveys suggest that differences do exist in the online context.TRANSCRIPT
THE GAP BETWEEN ONLINE JOURNALISM EDUCATION
AND PRACTICE: THE TWIN SURVEYS
By Ying Roselyn Du, Ph.D.Assistant Professor
School of CommunicationHong Kong Baptist University
and
Ryan ThornburgAssistant Professor
School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB# 3365Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365
Presented to the Newspaper DivisionAssociation for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado
August 4, 2010
1
Abstract
The gap between journalism education and journalism practice has long been the
focus of debates in the field. Amid the emergence of online journalism in the 1990s, the
profession's criticism of journalism education has continued unabated. It is ever
important to revisit the old “gap” issue in this new context. This study attempts to
examine the discordance between education and practice by comparing online journalism
professionals and educators’ perceptions of key skills, concepts, and duties for online
journalism. Findings of the twin surveys suggest that differences do exist in the online
context.
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Introduction
The gap between journalism education and journalism practice has long been the
focus of debates in the field. Professional journalists chide journalism professors for
talking to students about what they see as a trade best learned in its practice. As early as
1967, Highton lamented that newspapering was becoming a sidelight, if not an
afterthought, of many journalism schools (Highton, 1967, p. 10). In the past decades,
both the academia and the media industry have paid much attention to the gap between
the newsroom and the classroom. Scholars as well as professional journalism
organizations have conducted research concerning the topic. The one thing on which they
agree is that something must be done to narrow the divide.
Overall, previous research suggests that a gap does exist between journalism
education and practice, one way or another. For example, research on journalism faculty
found that many educators felt there was antipathy or estrangement between themselves
and the working press. Other research has observed that journalists do not like what is
taught in journalism schools, and they do not trust those who teach it.
Amid the emergence of online journalism in the 1990s, the profession's
criticism of journalism education has continued unabated. The skills that media
professionals need to survive and succeed have shifted with the evolution of
technologies. Today’s journalism graduates are walking into a field that is
constantly changing because of technology and convergence. It is ever important
to revisit the old “gap” issue in this new context. This study attempts to
reexamine the discordance, if there still exists, between the education and
practice by comparing online journalism professionals and educators’ perceptions
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of key skills, concepts, and duties for online journalism. It hopes to help bridge
the gap between newsroom and classroom.
Literature Review
For decades, journalism education has been criticized for failing to move
in tandem with the real world of newsroom. There have been ongoing debates
between media professionals and journalism educators about what is needed in
newsrooms and what should be taught in classrooms. The gap between what
educators and media professionals perceive important has been the focus of
much previous research.
Starting from the 1980s, several studies have looked at “the gap” from the
professional point of view. Overall, these studies revealed that many media
professionals were dissatisfied with basic writing skills of new graduates. For
example, Cowdin (1985) found that professionals were not pleased with
journalism graduates’ writing skills and their lack of knowledge in areas in which
they were writing stories, such as history, economics and government. Mabrey
(1988) noted the two criticisms mentioned by Cowdin – that graduates can’t write
well and don’t know enough about the specific areas – as well as several others,
such as graduates do not or will not read, that they do not have an serious sense
of accuracy, they do not know how to ask questions, and they have no passion
for news. Later, Fedler (1993) observed several major demands of media
professionals on journalism education. These include faculty members with more
professional experience, greater emphasis on the practical skills needed to
prepare students for work in the newspaper industry, a greater emphasis on the
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liberal arts, less emphasis on communication theory courses, and less emphasis
on Ph.D.s and research as requirements for journalism faculty members.
Professional associations and projects also joined the individual scholars
in studying “the gap.” The “Electronic Media Career Preparation Study”
commissioned by the International Radio and Television Society, The Radio-
Television News Directors Association, and the National Association of Television
Program Executives found that the executives in the electronic media industry
and related fields emphasized the need for closer ties between the electronic
communication industry and educators. They rated higher education lowest for
practical knowledge and hands-on experience, and suggested that more
professional lecturing/teaching is the best way to improve the industry’s
relationship with academia (Roper Organization, 1987). At about the same time,
the Project on the Future of Journalism and Mass Communication conducted a
survey of the leaders of media organizations that belonged to the AEJMC Council
of Affiliates and reported that industry professionals and leaders were not
enthusiastic about the performance of journalism and mass communication
education (Project, 1987). The study found an assumption among professionals
that journalism education could produce only entry-level hires and was not able
to help mid-career or advanced professionals. In 1990, the American Society of
Newspaper Editors reported that only 4% of editors gave journalism school an
“A” grade based upon the quality of their recent hires, whereas half of the editors
did not care whether their new hires had a journalism degree or not (ASNE,
1990). For the skills that editors considered most important – reporting, spelling
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and grammar, and journalism ethics, the editors surveyed rated recent journalism
graduates the lowest. The Jane Pauley Task Force on Mass Communication
Education (Society of Professional Journalists, 1996) reported that TV news
directors were most critical of graduates’ writing abilities, general knowledge, and
unrealistic expectations. Few respondents of their study mentioned that they
were satisfied with graduates’ ability to communicate or their general technical
skills.
On the other hand, some research has examined “the gap” from
journalism educator’s point of view. Some journalism educators noted that the
separation of journalism and mass communication units for their industrial
moorings was defensible, because journalism education has a greater purpose
than just preparing students for entry-level jobs as working journalists (AEJMC
Vision 2000 Task Force, 1994). They pointed out that, because journalism
education must prepare graduates for a variety of media and non-media jobs as
well as for graduate school, journalism educators and professionals can not be
expected to agree on all matters relating to journalism education. Some other
journalism educators joined professional journalists in criticizing journalism
education for distancing itself from the needs of the real world of media industry.
For example, Medsger (1996) warned of journalism education’s increasing
disconnection from journalism, saying that it had drifted too far away from its
practical roots by paying little or no attention to critical matters, such as whether
students are writing well, or whether ethics is being taught.
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Some other studies have explored the gap between the two camps by
examining a variety of both media professionals and educators. For instance,
Dickson and Sellmeyer (1992) found several significant differences between
opinions of journalism and mass communication program administrators and
editors of daily newspapers on 15 of 21 topics regarding what journalism schools
should provide their graduates. The study observed that administrators are
significantly more likely than editors to state that overviews of the mass
communication field, media history, media ethics, communication concepts, and
media law are priorities. The Jane Pauley Task Force on Mass Communication
Education compared the opinions of administrators of college broadcast
programs and TV news directors about the ability of entry-level graduates.
Results show that administrators had a higher mark of their graduates than news
editors had of applicants (Society of Professional Journalists, 1996). In another
broadcast study, Duhe and Zukowski (1997) examined the attitudes of broadcast
educators and professionals toward specific broadcast curricula and how well it
prepared students for first job. Professionals and educators alike ranked most
highly the curricula with the most practical experience in the form of internships
and laboratory classes. But the two groups had different reasons for thinking that
a hands-on curriculum was the most important – professionals stated that it was
because of the experience it offered, while educators said that it was because
such a program produced students whose skills and intellect were balanced,
allowing them to merge higher- and lower-order learning.
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More recently, Dickson and Brandon (2000) surveyed both educators and
professionals of newspaper and broadcast journalism to find out the reasons for
the dissatisfaction among professionals. The results, in line with those of other
studies, suggest that educators tend to value conceptual merits more than
professionals, who tend to believe conceptual courses, such as theory, history,
law, ethics, do little to prepare students for newsroom practice. Professionals
instead perceive skills (such as reporting, online writing) more valuable and
better-prepared students for careers in the media industry. The findings reveal
that a gap does exist between the professional journalists and journalism
educators surveyed in several aspects of journalism education. The gap,
however, is not particularly wide. In general, the results of this study showed that
although there were significant differences between the groups of educator and
professionals, the groups were in overall agreement regarding the relative
importance of the types of media-related courses necessary for graduates
seeking jobs in the fields of newspaper or broadcast journalism. Fee, Russial,
and Autumn’s (2001) study of copy editing skills found that although editors and
instructors generally agreed on how to prepare students for the workplace across
a range of traditional job skills such as critical thinking, word editing and writing
headlines, the instructors routinely rated certain skills significantly higher than the
editors. The gap was largest on skills such as pagination, coaching of writers,
and reporting.
Moving beyond newspaper and broadcast, Lepre and Bleske (2005)
studied magazine journalism educators and magazine editors and discovered a
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wide discrepancy between the qualities editors want in new hires and those
educators believe were important - educators tend to value journalism concepts
and skills, whereas editors are less concerned with specific skills. Instead, editors
care more about a well-rounded education, an enthusiastic attitude, and a
willingness to learn on the job in hiring journalism graduates.
Discrepancy was found also in a recent study, which surveyed journalism
educators and newsroom managers and discovered differing opinions about the
way students are trained in journalism programs (Wenger & Nicholson, 2006).
The study suggests that newsroom managers believe that students are entering
the workforce with barely adequate writing, reporting, interviewing, and ethical
decision-making skills. Journalists and professors surveyed both suggested that
more dialog is needed between the academy and the profession in order to
bridge the gap.
In light of the trend towards convergence, most recently, Pierce and Miller
(2007) surveyed newspaper editors to find out what skills are believed to be most
important for educators to teach future journalists. Compared to the early 1990s,
when the American Society of Newspaper Editors found that most editors
perceived writing, spelling/grammar, and knowledge about journalism ethics to be
the most important skills and experience with computers and computer writing
skills as the least important for new journalists, this study found that computer
skills were high on the list of importance. (However, editors suggest these skills
do not replace the foundations of journalism – the basic skills of writing, spelling,
grammar, and critical thinking remain the most important.) In a Nieman Reports
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article, Aumente (2007) also emphasized the importance of focusing on the
basics of solid reporting and writing skills while also teaching journalism students
new technologies as they emerge. Aumente also advocates that other skills are
needed in modern newsrooms, including the ability to work collaboratively,
because many multimedia projects are produced by teams with diverse skills.
Since the emergence of online journalism in the 1990s, the skills media
professionals need to survive and succeed have shifted with the evolution of
technologies. While the industry undergoes revolutionary changes, are
journalism schools moving in the same direction? Are journalism educators
responding accordingly? Are they teaching the skills and concepts that catch up
to the demands of the industry?
This study attempts to reexamine the discordance, if there still exists,
between the media industry and journalism schools by comparing online
journalism professionals and educators’ perceptions of skills, concepts, and
duties of online newsrooms. Based on previous research, the following research
questions and hypothesis are proposed:
RQ1: What skills are most needed for online journalism?
RQ2: What duties are most common in online journalism?
RQ3: What concepts are most valued for online journalism?
H1: There are differences in the perceptions of online journalism
instructors and online journalists regarding skills, duties, and concepts for online
journalism.
Method
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Samples and procedures
The twin surveys of online journalism course instructors and online
journalists were launched in early 2009. The questionnaires are identical except
that the wording of each was geared toward its own group of subjects. The
composition of the questionnaires is based on a pilot study conducted on North
Carolina online journalists earlier in 2008.
The instructor sample was taken from Online News Association’s member
directory. All the 180 ONA academic members nationwide identified at the time
were included in the survey mailing list. After one pre-contact, three rounds of
email contacts (with one week apart from each other) with survey link included, in
total 101 members responded to the survey, resulting in a response rate of 56%.
The nationwide journalist sample was obtained through a multi-stage procedure.
First, the most recent ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) list of daily newspapers
(1,412 as of 2009) was used to draw a 10% random sample using a stratified
sampling technique (very small, small, medium, large, and very large
newspapers in terms of Monday-Friday circulations). The second step was
visiting each of these sampled dailies’ websites, searching for the masthead, and
recording the names and contact information of any online journalists, which is
defined as content creators having one of the following words in their titles:
online, interactive, multimedia, new media, blogger, producer, developer. In order
to make the sample more representative, the third step was making telephone
calls to the newspapers whose Website does not list online journalists. Through
this multi-stage procedure, 151 online journalists were identified and included in
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the survey mailing list. After one pre-contact, the journalists were sent three
rounds of email contacts (with one week apart from each other) with survey link
included. Forty-nine online journalists responded to the survey, resulting in a
response rate of 32%.
Variables and data collection
Data were collected through the twin surveys conducted by Qualtrics online
survey program. The questionnaire consists of four parts. The first asks questions
regarding perceptions of skills (18 items), the second asks about the work duties of the
respondents (24 items), the third asks about journalism concepts (10 items), and the
fourth asks for profile/demographic information, including work titles, age, gender, race,
education level, and others. The survey instrument includes 5-point Likert scales
(interval), rank ordering (ordinal), and categorical questions (nominal).
The unit of analysis is the individual instructor/journalist. A series of t-tests were
conducted using SPSS to find out if there are significant differences between the two
groups’ perceptions on the key concepts, duties, and skills for online journalism.
Results and Discussion
Summary statistics
Table 1 illustrates the respondent profiles of the twin surveys. Among the
101 online journalism instructor respondents, 56% are male; 79% are between
31-59 years old; and 89% are White. In other words, mid-aged White males
dominate online journalism classrooms. This is also the case with online
newsrooms – among the 49 online journalist respondents, 68% are male; 71%
are between 31-59 years old; and 92% are White.
1
There was a big gap in the educational attainment of the two groups of
respondents (see Table 1) - 91% of the instructors have at least 17 years of
education (post-graduate), while only 16% percent of the online journalists have
attained that level of education. The majority of the journalists are college
graduates (68%). This is not surprising since journalists are not doing higher
education work and an advanced degree is not a necessary requirement of their
job.
It is worth noting that 8% of the instructors have no professional online
journalism experience. Another interesting observation is 41% of these
newspaper journalists identified themselves as “producer,” instead of the
traditional labels of “reporter” or “editor.”
Table 1 Profile of Respondents1
InstructorsGender Male 56% 68%
Female 44% 32%Age (in year)
30- 5% 29%31-59 79% 71%60+ 16% 0%
Race White 89% 92%Black 4% 0%Other 7% 9%
Education (in year)
(12-) High School or less 0% 0%(13-15) Some College 3% 16%(16) 4-yr College Graduate 6% 68%(17+) Post-Graduate Work 91% 16%
Professional Journalism Experience (in year)2
0 8% 0%1-5 38% 33%6-9 21% 14%10+ 30% 55%
Academic Rank
Instructor 18% N/AAssistant Prof. 28%
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Associate Prof. 19%Prof. 14%Other 21%
Job Title in Newsroom
EditorN/A
54%Reporter 5%Producer 41%
1 Total of percentage not always equal to 100% due to rounding error;2 For the instructor group, the questionnaire asked specifically for “online” journalism
experience.
What skills are most needed for online journalism?
Table 2 shows the top 10 skills that instructors and journalists rated most needed
for online newsrooms. The two groups agree on seven skills as most important, which are
grammar and style, news judgment, writing summary content for the Web, Web usability,
blogging tools, video reporting and/or editing, and experience with a content
management system. Instructors and journalists both rated basic journalism skills –
grammar and style, news judgment – as the foremost important among all. This indicates
that the traditional skills that have always comprised the foundation of journalism
practice remain important even among the emergence of new skills and duties. It is also
unusual to note that the historical gap between the different levels of importance that
journalists and educators ascribe to practical traditional skills such as spelling and
grammar may be fading. This is consistent with some previous research (e.g., Pierce &
Miller, 2007), which found that traditional backbone skills remain important in online
journalism.
As for the skills about which the two groups disagree, Photoshop (6th), web layout
and/or user interface design (8th), HTML (9th) are among the top 10 rated by the
professionals, whereas the educators’ top 10 list includes audio reporting and/or editing
(6th), Soundslides (9th), and search engine optimization (10th).
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Table 2 Most Needed Skills
Skills
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Journalists Mean
N = 49
1 Grammar and style 4.44 News Judgment 4.07
2 News Judgment 4.32 Grammar and style 4.02
3
Writing summary content for the Web (blurbs, headlines, captions,
labels)
4.14 My company’s content management system
4
4Web Usability 3.51 Writing summary content
for the Web (blurbs, headlines, captions, labels)
3.98
5 Blogging tools (Wordpress, etc.)
3.51 Web Usability 3.93
6 Audio reporting and/or editing
3.4 Photoshop 3.44
7 Video reporting and/or editing
3.37 Blogging tools (Wordpress, etc.)
3.34
8 My company’s content management system
3.15 Web layout and/or user interface design
3.2
9 Soundslides 3.09 HTML 3.2
10 Search engine optimization
2.94 Video reporting and/or editing
3.17
Survey question for instructors: “Please tell us the proficiency level you think your students should have for each of these skills if they work for online newsrooms”
Survey Question for Journalists: “Please tell us the proficiency level you have for each of these skills.”
5-point forced choice scale: 1 = none, 2 = basic, 3 = intermediate, 4 = advance, 5 = expert
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What duties are most common in online journalism?
Table 3 shows the top 10 duties that instructors and journalists ranked as the most
common in online newsrooms. Compared to skills, instructors and journalists are quite
split in their perceived frequency of the duties on this list. Only five duties are on both
groups' list of top 10 most common duties. The five duties on which both the educators
and journalists agree are reporting and writing original stories, story
combining/shortening, writing or editing scripts, photo/image editing, and project
management. Moreover, even among these five duties, the rankings are quite
inconsistent. For example, while the instructors thought “reporting and writing original
stories” is the top duty performed by online journalists, the professionals ranked it only
9th.
Multimedia authoring, editing text for content, writing headlines or blurbs,
managing user-generated content, and editing for grammar or style are among the top 10
duties that instructors thought their students would perform the most often when they
work in online newsrooms in the near future. However, the professionals did not seem to
be doing so. Instead, they indicated that they were actually working on blogging, photo
shooting, user interface design, video production, and staff organization/administration
more often. This suggests some level of unfamiliarity with real newsroom routines
among the instructors. As noted earlier, 8% of the instructors surveyed have no online
newsroom experience. This may partially explain the large discrepancy with regard to
most common duties as perceived by professionals and educators. Oddly enough, while
professional journalists have long thought that educators spent too little time on skills,
1
today's online journalists have duties that are more likely to be conceptual – such as
project management and staff organization/administration – than their academic
counterparts might believe.
Table 3 Most Performed Duties
Duties
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Journalists Mean
N = 49
1 Reporting and writing original stories
2.32 Writing or editing scripts 3.33
2 Story combining/shortening
4.45 Project management 4
3 Writing or editing scripts 5.04 Blogging 4.3
4 Multimedia authoring 5.13 Photo shooting 4.33
5 Editing text for content 5.15 User interface design 4.33
6 Writing headlines or blurbs
5.21 Video production 4.35
7 Managing user-generated content
5.43 Staff organization/administration
4.61
8 Editing for grammar or style
5.67 Story combining/shortening
4.71
9 Photo/image editing 5.67 Reporting and writing original stories
4.86
10 Project management 5.7 Photo/image editing 4.95
Survey question for instructors: “Select and rank the top 10 duties you think your students will perform the most often during the first year of their professional careers.”
1
Survey Question for Journalists: “Select and rank the top 10 duties you spent your work time on.”
10-point forced choice scale: 1 = most important, 2 = second most important…
What concepts are most valued for online journalism?
Table 4 shows how instructors and journalists ranked the value placed on various
concepts in online newsrooms. Educators and journalists both ranked “online community
management” the least important concept for online newsrooms among all the 10
presented in the questionnaires. The professional ranked "multitasking" as the most
valuable concept, but instructors ranked it 7th. On the other side, educators said they
thought the most important concept for their students to have in online newsrooms is
“news judgment (5th by journalists).”
Both groups rank the “ability to work under pressure” and “ability to learn new
technologies" as two of their respective five most valued concepts in online newsrooms.
The professionals seemed to value “attention to detail” more that the educators, whereas
the educators seemed to value “team work/collaboration” and “interpersonal
communication” more than the professionals. Of all the concepts on the list, perhaps one
of the most difficult to simulate in the topically focused environment of many journalism
classes is "multitasking" – and it's the concept on which the two groups differ the most. It
seems one of the best ways for journalism students to prepare for working in the field of
journalism may not be any single class they take, but their ability to manage many classes
at once.
Table 4 Most Valued Concepts
Concepts
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Jou
1
rnalists Mean
N = 49
1 News judgment 2.92 Multitasking 4.14
2 Ability to work under time pressure
4.55 Ability to learn new technologies
4.49
3 Team work/collaboration
4.7 Attention to detail 4.56
4 Interpersonal communication
4.85 Ability to work under time pressure
4.83
5 Ability to learn new technologies
5.04 News judgment 5.15
6 Attention to detail 5.16 Team work/collaboration 5.15
7 Multitasking 5.49 Web usability 5.29
8 Awareness of new technologies
5.92 Interpersonal communication
5.91
9 Web usability 7.25 Awareness of new technologies
6.61
10 Online community management
7.77 Online community management
6.86
Survey question for instructors: “Rank the concepts in the order in which you think they are important to your students’ future job in online newsrooms.”
Survey Question for Journalists: “Rank the concepts in the order in which they are important to your job.”
10-point forced choice scale: 1 = most important…10 = least important
Tests of difference
Based on the results of previous research, this study proposed a general
hypothesis that there are differences in the perceptions of online journalism
1
instructors and online journalists regarding the skills, duties, and concepts for
online journalism. A series of t-tests were conducted to explore the statistical
differences between the journalists and the instructors.
As Table 5 illustrates, significant differences exist in seven of the 18 skill
items. These include web usability, Flash, grammar and style, audio reporting
and/or editing, HTML, Photoshop, and content management systems. Overall,
the journalists are most significantly higher (mostly at the 0.01 level) in their level
of proficiency in Web usability, HTML, Photoshop, and “my company’s content
management system." On the other hand, instructors seem to place more weight
on Flash, grammar and style, audio reporting and/or editing.
Table 5 Comparison of Skill Level
Skills
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Journalists Mean
N = 49
t p
News Judgment 4.32 4.07 1.47 0.14
Web Usability 3.51 3.93 -2.31 0.02*
Dreamweaver 2.27 2.37 -0.48 0.63
Information graphics design 2.66 2.61 0.24 0.82
Web layout and/or user interface design
2.82 3.20 -1.80 0.08
Flash 2.30 1.85 2.94 <0.01**
SQL 1.76 1.71 0.28 0.78
Search engine optimization 2.94 2.95 -0.08 0.94
Blogging tools (Wordpress, etc.) 3.51 3.34 0.842 0.40
Computer programming skills (e.g. PHP, JavaScript, Python, ASP, Ajax)
1.83 1.90 -0.43 0.67
Grammar and style 4.44 4.02 2.95 <0.01**
Writing summary content for the Web (blurbs, headlines, captions,
4.14 3.98 1.00 0.32
2
labels)
Audio reporting and/or editing 3.40 2.80 3.25 <0.01**
Video reporting and/or editing 3.37 3.17 1.17 0.25
HTML 2.66 3.20 -2.88 0.01**
Photoshop 2.91 3.44 -2.85 0.01**
Soundslides 3.09 2.65 1.86 0.07
My company’s content management system
3.15 4.00 -4.14 <0.01**
Survey question for instructors: “Please tell us the proficiency level you think your students should have for each of these skills if they work for online newsrooms”
Survey Question for Journalists: “Please tell us the proficiency level you have for each of these skills.”
5-point forced choice scale: 1 = none, 2 = basic, 3 = intermediate, 4 = advance, 5 = expert
* significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).** significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
As for duties, as Table 6 illustrates, significant differences exist in four of
the duties - staff organization/administration, video production,
information/graphic design, and user interface design. On average, it seems in
reality the journalists are working on these duties more often than the instructors
expect.
Table 6 Comparison of Duties
Duties
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Journalists Mean
N = 49
t p
Reporting and writing original stories 2.32 4.86 -1.67 0.14
Multimedia authoring 5.13 6.14 -1.17 0.25
Staff organization/administration 9.00 4.61 5.78 <0.01**
Project management 5.70 4.00 1.99 0.05
Working on business issues 8.14 5.88 1.91 0.07
Analyzing site usage metrics 7.53 6.55 1.09 0.28
Database design/administration 7.00 5.15 1.44 0.17
2
Blogging 5.74 4.30 1.67 0.10
Email newsletter production 6.82 6.33 0.45 0.66
Writing or editing scripts 5.04 3.33 1.19 0.24
Editing text for content 5.15 5.32 -0.24 0.81
Managing user-generated content 5.43 5.78 -0.44 0.66
Editing for grammar or style 5.67 5.27 0.49 0.63
Writing headlines or blurbs 5.21 5.22 -0.01 0.99
Developing and managing relationships with third-party content
providers
7.67 5.50 1.71 0.10
Training or teaching other staff members in new skills or concepts
6.75 6.32 0.50 0.62
Story combining/shortening 4.45 4.71 -0.22 0.83
Photo/image editing 5.67 4.95 1.06 0.29
Photo shooting 5.91 4.33 1.00 0.32
Audio production 6.02 6.71 -0.82 0.42
Video production 5.74 4.35 2.18 0.03*
Information/graphic design 7.50 5.29 2.60 0.02*
User interface design 7.57 4.33 2.57 0.02*
Other duties 7.70 5.43 1.92 0.07
Survey question for instructors: “Select and rank the top 10 duties you think your students will perform the most often during the first year of their professional careers.”
Survey Question for Journalists: “Select and rank the top 10 duties you spent your work time on.”
10-point forced choice scale: 1 = most important, 2 = second most important…
* significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).** significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Table 7 shows the significant differences existing in four of the 10
concepts -- web usability, interpersonal communication, multitasking, and news
judgment. The journalists seem to value multitasking and Web usability more
than the instructors value those concepts. Instructors seem to emphasize
interpersonal communication and news judgment more than the professionals.
2
This implies that the professionals focus more than the instructors on practical
matters.
Table 7 Comparison of Concepts
Concepts
Instructors Mean
N = 101
Journalists Mean
N = 49
t p
Attention to detail 5.16 4.56 1.42 0.26
Online community management 7.77 6.86 1.52 0.14
Ability to work under time pressure
4.55 4.83 -0.55 0.58
Interpersonal communication 4.85 5.91 -2.08 0.04*
Multitasking 5.49 4.14 2.37 0.02*
Team work/collaboration 4.70 5.15 -0.90 0.37
Ability to learn new technologies 5.04 4.49 1.07 0.29
Awareness of new technologies 5.92 6.61 -1.22 0.23
News judgment 2.92 5.15 -3.45 <0.01**
Web usability 7.25 5.29 3.57 <0.01**
Survey question for instructors: “Rank the concepts in the order in which you think they are important to your students’ future job in online newsrooms.”
Survey Question for Journalists: “Rank the concepts in the order in which they are important to your job.”
10-point forced choice scale: 1 = most important…10 = least important
* significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).** significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
This study found evidence of significant differences between professional
journalists’ and journalism educators’ perceptions on the key skills, duties, and concepts
for online journalism. Hypothesis 1 is supported.
The results of this study suggest that journalism schools need to do more to teach
in classes visual and management elements of online journalism: Web usability, HTML,
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Photoshop, staff organization, video production, user interface design,
information/graphic design.
Conclusion, Limitation and Future Research
This study offers updated insights into the much-debated gap between journalism
education and practice as it revisits the issue in the online journalism context. To our best
knowledge, this study is by far the very first quantitative, empirical exploration
comparing online journalism education with practice. In line with previous research, this
study finds evidence of the “gap” – there are significant differences in the perceptions of
online journalists and online journalism educators regarding key skills, duties, and
concepts for online journalism.
An additional finding of this study is that traditional backbone skills, such as news
judgment and grammar and style, remain important in online journalism, as agreed by the
professionals and educators. Another additional finding is, while professional journalists
have long thought that educators spent too little time on skills, ironically, today's online
journalists have duties that are more likely to be conceptual – such as project
management and staff organization/administration – than their academic counterparts
might believe.
One major strength of this study is that it made every effort, as described in the
method section, to reach a representative sample of online journalists and educators.
Considered that the usual Internet survey response rate is 1% -30% (Wimmer &
Dominick, 2005), this study should be deemed highly successful in generating solid, rich
data and representative, meaningful results, given its excellent response rates of 32% and
56% for the twin surveys respectively.
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This study examined only daily newspaper subjects as representatives of online
journalists. Future research may expand the journalist sample to multiple media types.
The online staffs of broadcast or online-only news outlets may regard the key skills,
duties and concepts differently. On the educator’s side, we are not so sure about the
extent to which ONA academic members represent the online journalism instructor
population, although from the respondents’ profile, we do not see any reason to suspect
sampling bias. These reservations should be taken into account when assessing the results
of this study and developing future research. If time and resource permit, a multi-stage
procedure (for example, starting from JMC program directory, and then online journalism
courses in each program, and then instructors for each course) to search for a complete
list of online journalism instructors may be desirable.
As the online journalism field continues to evolve, it is important for future
research to continue to study how journalism educators may keep up with the new world
of journalism and prepare their students to enter the ever-changing workforce. The line of
inquiry comparing what’s needed in the newsrooms as perceived by media professionals
and what’s taught in the classrooms as reported by instructors provides many
opportunities for new exploration.
These suggestions in combination with the results of the twin surveys in
the current study suggest that the context of online journalism offers a rich
opportunity to expand our understanding of the connection or disconnection
between journalism education and practice. The authors hope such
understanding will be helpful in bridging the much-debated “gap” in the new era.
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