Download - Entrepreneurial Journalism Education
Entrepreneurial Journalism Education in the US
Donica [email protected] / [email protected]
Entrepreneurship is the process of creating and implementing innovation-based solutions and responses to economic or societal problems and gaps in the private marketplace.
Mars and Metcalf (2009)
ContextGlobal transition from the industrial age to
the digital information age
40 years of stagnation in the publishing business (Hoag and Seo, 2005)
Economic crisis in journalism organizations
Journalism education that focuses on reinforcing the way things used to be done
Few students will find jobs in traditional news organizations.Journalism education programs continue to grow.The journalism industry is in dire straits.What is our response?
Entrepreneurship offers a theme for energizing journalism education
Questions
Motivations for developing entrepreneurial journalism efforts in journalism education
Major trends in entrepreneurial journalism curricula
What these efforts represent in terms of the future direction of journalism education
Developing literature
An education for independence (Baines and Kennedy, 2010)
Learning from layoffs (Nel, 2010)
Creative destruction (Nee, 2013)
How jschools are helping students learn entrepreneurial journalism skills (Breiner, 2013)
The overall pictureApproximately 30% of US journalism
education programs teach some aspect of entrepreneurial journalism (Becker, Vlad and Kalpen, 2012)
List of 25 relevant journalism education programs (and counting)http://bit.ly/11GsD2L
Strong foundation support (Scripps Howard Foundation/Knight Foundation)
Three emerging models: “traditional classroom teaching and degree programs, innovation laboratories, and partnerships with news publishers and nongovernmental organizations.”(Breiner, 2013)How j-schools are helping students develop entrepreneurial skills
Motivations vary:To save journalism To save students
Many programs focus on graduate students or midcareer professionals, rather than undergraduate students
Some of the largest programs receive multimillion grants to fund their work.Arizona State, City University of New York, Columbia University, University of Southern California, University of North Carolina
Most entrepreneurial courses focus on new product development and revenue generation
Courses are usually electives, generally taken by a small number of students within a program.
Course design is often similar: students work alone or in teams to develop an idea, do market research, create a business plan, build a prototype and pitch it to a potential investor.
However, entrepreneurial concepts and approaches could be embedded in small, creative ways throughout a journalism program – in courses, meetings, activities.
Conclusions
Entrepreneurship is one way to change the “culture of journalism”
Faculty can (and need) to practice entrepreneurship in pedagogy and practices
Entrepreneurial concepts could be more systematically applied in other ways
Entrepreneurial concepts could be applied to:Professional practices (e.g. story forms,
sourcing, interviewing, etc.)
Civic practices (organize, contribute)
Technological practices (new apps, sites)
Economic practices (new forms of revenue)
Pedagogical practices (alternative teaching methods, lessons, assignments)
Questions of assessmentNumber of new ventures created
Success of students in finding and creating their own jobs
New journalistic practices developed
Number of experiments launched
FinallyEntrepreneurial thinking offers a path for
journalism educators to innovate and change
Rather than teaching students in ‘teaching hospitals’ we can help students engage fully on the streets doing the work they imagine
Confining entrepreneurial ways of thinking to a few classes for a few students limits possibilities. Entrepreneurs embrace change; so can we.
Growing list of entrepreneurial journalism programs/classes/ideas. Please add yours.
http://bit.ly/11GsD2L