Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology

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Browsing Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology by browse.metadata.advisor "De Beer, Arnold S."

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    Journalism education in universities : the global and local migration of concepts between discipline and practice
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-03) Du Toit, Jeanne Erica; Mouton, Johann; De Beer, Arnold S.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Journalism.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study deals with the relationship between university-based journalism education and journalism as a social practice. It is argued that the construction of this relationship can be better understood in context of its location within the history different conceptions of social knowledge. The purpose was to gain insight into how this relationship was shaped by the location of journalism education within global and local histories of such knowledge. This goal was pursued through an exploration of the international development of university-based journalism education and a more detailed consideration of the South African example. The study consists, firstly, of a literature review which demonstrates how the construction of the relationship between journalism education and journalism as practice has been implicated in the history of different conceptualisations of authoritative knowledge. The review traces the role played by Mass Communication Studies and Cultural Studies in shaping this relationship. It is concluded that the way in which these two fields have located themselves within the politics of authoritative knowledge has contributed to the marginalisation, within journalism education, of critical engagement between academic knowledge and knowledge of journalistic practice. The review also teases out how South African journalism education has positioned itself within the broader history of universitybased journalism education. It is concluded that although the marginalisation of critical education is reproduced within the South African example, a close study of journalism education in this country reveals the potential for a more critical engaged approach to teaching. The study includes an empirical research component focusing on South African journalism education. This serves as a more detailed exploration of the themes emerging from the literature review, pursued in context of an examination of a historically situated example of university-based journalism education. A central aim of this empirical component of the study was to explore the potential for the realisation of a critically engaged tradition in journalism education in South Africa. The study drew, for this purpose, on interviews with individuals who have experience both of working as journalists and of studying and teaching in university environments in South Africa. One conclusion drawn from these interviews is that journalism education, as it exists in this country, has primarily defined itself in relation to a mainstream and ‘liberal’ understanding of authoritative journalistic knowledge. It is demonstrated that it becomes possible to imagine a more critically engaged and transformative relationship with journalism practice if teaching acknowledges the existence, in the South African context, of alternative approaches to authoritative journalistic knowledge. It is also shown that within existing traditions of critical education, the relationship with practice tends to be one of the ‘deconstruction’ of the liberal conceptualisation of journalistic knowledge. The study proposes that ‘critical engagement’ needs, instead, to be reconceptualised as a relationship of ‘supportive critique’ with historically situated examples of journalistic practice.