Does journalism education make a difference?

Abstract

Do journalism students read newspapers? Are they aware of what is happening around the world and in their own countries? Keeping track of current affairs and their developments is one of their concerns? Do they use the media to do it? If yes, how do they interpret and value the news? What’s their opinion about journalism? How do they value journalism as a profession? Is journalism students’ behavior different from other students, when it comes to using the media? If not, should it be? Should journalism education programs include these dimensions as part of their curricula? Do habits and uses of media differ along the way? Do journalism education programs make a difference? These are some of the concerns that we face as journalism teachers, having to create and develop programs, curricula and strategies for journalism education. Although we were convinced that the products of media and current affairs should be brought to class, also as an item for students’ evaluation, we felt the need to gather empirical data to test and improve our teaching methods. That’s how we first came up with the idea for a survey about students’ habits of media use, back in the year 2000. Since then, we have been developing a research in the form of a case study at University of Minho. So far, we have implemented the first part of the survey, an exploratory study, which enabled us to gather and analyze data about graduation students’ habits and representations, from 2001 to 2005, and to test the instrument we created (questionnaire).