Taking Community Engagement Into Journalism Education

• In Event: Creating Critical Media Workers: Labor and Pedagogy

Abstract

Community engagement has become a recognized methodology for research, teaching, and service that rests on the development of mutually beneficial relationships for educators, community members, and students. Many universities now laud such programs for their pedagogical benefits, particularly as such efforts create spaces for students to grapple with issues of structural racism, white privilege, and the many factors that contribute to social change or stasis within particular contexts. But community engagement has also become a buzzword in relation to many newsroom, advertising, and corporate relations initiatives, creating opportunities for misunderstanding and differing expectations among various participants in community engaged processes. How does one manage the expectations of various stakeholders? How are the transformative experiences of students valued in relation to other pedagogical goals? And what happens when student experiences fall short of transformative, or when projects fail to meet community goals? I am interested in exploring these and related questions.

Lynn Schofield Clark is Professor and Chair of the Department of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver and a member of the Chancellor’s Community Engagement Initiative Team. Her research focuses on media practices among diverse young people and their families. She is author of Young People and the Future of News: Social Media and the Rise of Connective Journalism (with Regina Marchi, Cambridge University Press, 2017), The Parent App: Understanding Families in a Digital Age (Oxford U P, 2013), and other books and articles.

Author

• Lynn Schofield Clark, U of Denver