Limitations of Journalism Education: The Case of Poland

• In Event: Journalism Education in the Digital Mediascapes

Abstract

Journalism in Poland is taught in several public and private schools and universities and courses on communication and media are still among the most popular in the group of social science; hundreds of new students begin their journalism education every academic year. The study programmes vary a lot starting from courses on history of media, theory of communication, media ethics, public relations, advertising and so on. Several universities in a country offer practical workshops and an opportunity to get involved in university-based community media-making (students’ radio, magazines and websites, and so on). However, several research studies have recently indicated moderate and/or rather low impact of journalism education when drawing the picture of journalistic community; 43 per cent of journalists in Poland do not hold degree in journalism (research project „Journalism in Change: Professional Journalistic Cultures in Russia, Poland and Sweden”) and - at the same time - 54 per cent of Polish media professionals think that journalists in a country are inadequately trained (research project “Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe (MediaAcT)”). In line with this, one might ask why so many media professionals do not have journalism educational background and whether this situation contributes to the negative assessment of education quality?

This paper is to take the holistic approach to Polish journalism with regard to limitations of the potential of journalism education. The special emphasis is being put on funding schemes for journalism education, the content of study programmes (journalism ethics courses included), as well as relations between journalism degree and the level of understanding of values, norms, principles and roles. All of this when examining impact of academia on journalism behavior, relations between scholarly institutions and media industry, recruitment requirements adopted by media enterprises as well as differences between skills gathered from universities and from professional training in media organizations.

Authors

• Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, U of Wroclaw

• Michal Glowacki, U of Warsaw