Change happens – and we are definitely living in an age that is constantly evolving into something completely different. One of the areas that has dramatically been affected is the field of Journalism. With the emergence of the Internet, social media, and other sites online – people are not reading newspapers anymore for their news and view journalists as being people with their own agenda and bias when reporting.
This has been an ongoing issue in the Journalism and Communication fields for years, and what has happened is that due to the economic crisis and dramatic change in how businesses, professionals, and people are receiving their information online – it has dramatically impacted the journalism discipline as we know it. Plus, another thing that has not helped journalists is the reputation of others bringing about a poor image of the profession. From Jayson Blair of The New York Times making up stories and be caught plagarizing, to Dan Rather’s actions during the 2004 Presidential Elections media scandal with the false documents on President Bush, it just has painted a very negative picture of the journalism field.
Richard Sine recently wrote a post of the Huffington Post on what universities need to do with their journalism programs. To sum it up in one sentence – he suggested that they get rid of them. Well, I think that might be a little too drastic. However, I do believe that there needs to be a more integrated approach to communication, and a partnership for sure with the business school.
As someone that is currently in both programs (I am in the Communications program at UTK getting my Ph.D. with my primary area in Public Relations, and my cognate area is in Marketing in the business school), I think that this would be a good move to make, especially for Public Relations. We work and operate with the same theories, principles, and strategies in our campaigns along with the business school. Both colleges offer great classes in research and practice in business and communications – I have been very fortunate to have some amazing professors that are experts in their field of study. I also see a shift towards PR professionals being more interdisciplinary in both their research and approaches to the profession – and being aligned with Marketing, Business, Economics, or any field within a strong Business school will be a very smart move in my opinion.
To summarize, I believe that besides seeing change in society and the business profession, we are going to see changes within the university – especially with the new technologies that are available. I am amazed with how universities are implementing social media to get news stories out and promote their brand to their key stakeholders – it is very fascinating to see how much it is all changing. Also, I believe that the students studying journalism do need to have a few backup plans along the way, or study journalism along with another discipline to be proactive in securing a position in the future. The more interdisciplinary that a student can be, the more successful they will be as a researcher and professional in these tough economic times.
Hope you all are having a great day. 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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