Journalism as a Framework for Civic and Information Literacies

• In Event: Journalism Education as a Gateway Discipline Toward Fostering Moral, Civic, Ideological, and Activist Transformations

Abstract

Technological developments have altered the nature of both literacy and civic participation (Jenkins, 2009; Hobbs, 2010). Civic engagement has become increasingly mediated through internet activity – signing online petitions, circulating political memes, or tinting one’s Facebook profile photo the color of the latest solidarity flag (Cohen et al, 2012, Soep, 2014). In turn, educators are conceptualizing possible models of civic learning in the digital age (Zuckerman, 2014; Kahne, Hodgin & Eidman-Aadahl, 2016). What are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that young people require to navigate information and advance their civic goals in the context of networked publics¬—publics restructured by networked technologies (boyd, 2014)? How can educational institutions support young people to develop these skills? In this paper we argue that journalism production can serve as a generative disciplinary context for developing civic and information literacies needed to meaningfully participate in increasingly networked and mediated public sphere.

We review several recent frameworks that classify the skills and dispositions young people need support with as they engage in technology-enabled, interest-driven, politically motivated activity. We then argue that the process of journalism production can serve as an authentic disciplinary context for developing these practices and skills. Using interviews with expert journalists, we developed a Cognitive Task Analysis model of the journalism production process, identifying an iterative sequence of production and domain-specific cognitive constructs of journalism expertise. The iterative process includes the following phases: 1) scan and filter; 2) select; 3) frame; 4) plan; 5) report; 6) narrativize; 7) review. Throughout these phases, expert journalists employ a number of cognitive constructs, including evaluative criteria, story schema, catalog of angles, audience model, and mental inventory. We map these phases and constructs onto the skills of participatory politics and connected civics proposed by Kahne et al (2016), Soep (2014) and Ito et al (2015). We envision the model serving both practitioners and researchers. For experienced journalists, the model can help to make explicit the tacit knowledge they take for granted that novices do not have. For educators with no journalism experience, the model can serve as a starting place for guiding unit design. For researchers of journalism education, the model can help to scope and define the particular aspects of this complex discipline that enable many forms of cognitive, social, and political learning.

Finally, we diagnose common discrepancies between professional journalism practices and typical youth journalism pedagogies, and suggest potential solutions to improve instruction and infrastructures for teaching participatory politics through journalism.

Authors

• Natalia Smirnov, Northwestern University

• Gulnaz Tajoddin Saiyed, Northwestern University

• Matthew Easterday, Northwestern University

• Wan Shun Eva Lam, Northwestern University