Journalism schools attempt to adapt curriculum to changes in technology

The field of journalism has been changing in recent years. Popular newspapers are going out of business and some are only  publishing online.

Some journalism schools are changing their curricula and adding courses to accommodate the evolving field.

Enrollment in the IU School of Journalism has increased and has not changed the required courses, said IU Director of Advising Services and Analysis Lauren Kinzer.

Some courses are being added to cover multimedia and online journalism, she said.

Most student interest at the school tends to be in public relations or magazines.

Ball State University’s journalism curriculum will change in the fall for new journalism students.

The faculty spent a year and a half analyzing the media landscape and how the school should prepare the students to adapt, said Marilyn Weaver, chairperson of the
Department of Journalism for the school.

“We will be starting a new curriculum of journalism that will focus more on the integration of technology,” Weaver said.

The new classes will be introduced to freshmen for the first year, and in the next year some classes will be available online so that other journalism students will have the option to switch over to the new program, Weaver said. She said the focus will continue to be on the foundations of journalism – good writing, good reporting and good investigation.

Medill School at Northwestern University began its new strategy for preparing journalism students for modern media in 2006.

Owen Youngman, Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern, said Dean John Lavine presented “Medill 2020,” a way of laying out different principles that 21st-century journalists need to be trained in. Youngman said this strategy to approaching journalism targets audiences.

“It’s not so much about adding new classes that teach new skills to new media and multimedia, it’s as much about looking how the message can get to the audience,” Youngman said.

IU professors are taking their own spin on a new focus of journalism.
Michael Evans, associate professor for the IU School of Journalism, said he is trying to focus more on international relations.

“It is apparent that journalists these days need to operate on a global state,” Evans said.

Lecturer and High School Journalism Institute Director Teresa White said because there is new media available to journalists, they are being forced to be more divergent in preparations.

“Consumers are used to having what they want,” White said. “You can customize your phone, your e-mail, your Facebook,
everything.”

White said she tried to introduce students to multi-platform work this past year. Her students worked with Twitter to learn how to make news media visually appealing.
White said she thinks it’s a bad idea to completely forgo the current curriculum, since technology is constantly changing.

IU freshman journalism student Hanna Kim said although newspapers are going downhill, students need to be more flexible.

“I think naturally I am worried because the size of the world of journalism is becoming smaller, so it is going to increase the competition,” Kim said. “Journalism schools need to make sure their journalism students know every aspect of journalism – blogging, knowing their way around the Internet  – and are more well-rounded.”