Journalism Studies: Multimedia and democratic values - Media Programme Southeast Europe
Event Reports
Since the political system changed in the beginning of the 1990s, the media landscapes in South East Europe have altered fundamentally. A lot of new media outlets emerged and the role of journalism in society modified as well. How future journalists can be educated as watchdogs of the democracy, was the topic of an expert workshop of KAS in Belgrade. It was discussed how universities can keep with new technical developments.
The "Task Force Journalism Education" of the Media Program South East Europe of KAS, existing since 2013, continued its work during a three-day workshop. After the founding meeting in May 2013 in Sofia and another meeting in Sarajevo in October, the results of numerous country reports were now presented and summed up in Belgrade. In these reports, experts from universities and NGOs give an overview over the status quo of journalism studies and further training opportunities in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.
Conclusions from all countries show that journalism education has made big evolutionary steps – but still is not satisfying. Due to the triumph of the internet, traditional journalism formats got into the background and the news consumption changed massively. This is why journalism education not only has to react to a democratic political environment, but also to the quick technical progress. Currently velocity, an easy access in transit and the visualization of content are more important for reporting than ever. All experts agreed that journalism education needs to adapt to this more strongly.
The balance of theory and practice has to be tarred over and over again: training in digital communication, multimedia and data journalism are just some of the educational elements that should be ranked higher in the region. Moreover, more young journalists need to be trained for self-employment, as there are less and less fulltime jobs available due to the difficult financial situation of many media. In order to be successful as a freelancer, management and communication skills are important in addition to journalistic competence. This is what the Media Program South East Europe of KAS aims at since 2013 with its conference "Entrepreneurial Journalism".
