[Commlist] Call for contributions: Higher journalism education online – state, challenges, perspectives (Medijska istraživanja / Media Research

The editors of Medijska istraživanja / Media Research indexed in SCOPUS 
would like to invite contributions to a special issue:

Higher journalism education online – state, challenges, perspectives

Digital age has significantly transformed higher education of 
journalists from both of its main aspects - academia and profession. New 
possibilities and opportunities, as well as more demanding challenges 
conditioned by rapid technology development particularly call for a 
specific scientific research and regular improvement of the content of 
study programs, and of the way they are organized and performed. In 
addition, the COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the traditional 
perception of journalism education and the educational experience for 
all main participants of the educational process.

Scientific journal Medijska istraživanja / Media Research helps to 
improve journalism theory and media research from 1995 by focusing on a 
range of important subjects, therefore thematising this topic continues 
the tradition. This special issue aims to present contemporary practice 
and theoretical thought of higher journalism education in an online 
environment with the intent of reviewing new trends in that scholarly 
area, particularly in the European context. The topic is relevant 
primarily because we passed the turning point where, using different 
technological solutions, the conventional journalism education was 
enriched with new teaching methods, tools, and approaches for 
educational purposes allowing it to adequately answer the media industry 
demands. Complex issues arising from web-based/online teaching and 
learning on an academic level of journalism education requires research 
of conducting professional journalism competencies from at least two 
main focuses:

1. Distance academic programs that educate journalists
Distance study programs are those performed entirely at a distance, 
respectively those in which all courses are performed online and those 
in which the complete teaching and learning process is mediated by ICT 
(Sener, 2015, Bates 2020). Distance academic programs that educate 
journalists have existed in some countries, such as the United States, 
for almost three decades (Castaneda, 2011), while in some areas, such as 
Southeastern Europe, they are still missing. There is, as well, a 
particular lack of literature presenting the introduction of such study 
programs, analysing curriculum, discussing challenges, advantages and 
disadvantages, as well as comparative research (Vukić and Brautović, 
2021). On that trail, we seek for articles on the following topics:
- planning and conducting study programs
- program concepts diversity
- (specific) teaching contents
- (national) case studies
- analysis of curricula and / or syllabuses
- advantages and disadvantages of study programs
- international comparative analyses
- organization of students' practice in media, etc.

2. Conducting e-learning in study programs that educate journalists
The pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus required an urgent shift to 
distance learning at all levels of education and for all the professions 
around the world, including academic programs that educate journalists, 
but e-learning in a hybrid form or only remotely was, in some 
institutions already a well-known academic practice. Similarly, student 
internships in students' media and in partner media organizations, have 
moved into a virtual environment. As such teaching experience differs 
significantly from the classroom experience and from in-person teaching, 
the transformation was a certain challenge for those who have 
encountered e-learning for the first time in these circumstances.

Although, there is a range of research topics regarding e-learning which 
resulted in different insights and conclusions, based on the recent 
experience of the heads of the higher journalism education institutions 
in Russian Federation during pandemic (Vartanova and Lukina, 2021), it 
could be argued that the journalism education in an online environment 
in the recent years faced numerous issues that can be associated with 
three key aspects: technological, pedagogical, and communicational. A 
number of articles illustrates it. For example, Fowler-Watt et al. 
(2021) present teaching experience of covering COVID-19 crisis within 
specific pedagogic challenges of the pandemic, such as teaching mobile 
journalism, reporting of the community and Zoom managing of students' 
wellbeing during lockdown. Further, Pain, Ahmed and Zahra Khalid (2021) 
discuss the consequences that the low internet connectivity, and the 
lack of access to technology brought to journalism education, giving the 
example of a good practice and remedy in the case of Kashmir, India. 
Studying the journalism students' distance learning experience at the 
Lomonosov Moscow State University during restrictive measures 
Poluekhtova, Vikhrova and Vartanova (2020) found that while effective 
online education presumes stable communication of all participants in 
the teaching process and among departments, online learning is not an 
alternative to the in-person journalism education because the formation 
of professional identity is hard to acquire at a distance.

Of all the mentioned perspectives from a general or from the emerging 
pandemic circumstances point of view, we encourage various contributions 
on the following topics:
- analysis of teaching documentation and curricula and/or syllabuses
- adaptation of teaching contents that are performed in the classroom 
for e-learning
- e-learning and teaching methods
- lifelong e-learning
- collaborative e-learning systems (Moodle, Merlin, MS Teams, etc.)
- hybrid forms of teaching
- e-learning experiences (teacher/student perspective)
- creativity in e-learning
- conducting student internships at a distance (student media/media 
organizations), etc.

We are looking for scientific research articles from a wide range of 
academic contexts and methodologies, and for book reviews of the books 
published in 2021-2022, and we actively encourage interdisciplinary, 
comparative and innovative submissions that will contribute to the 
development of the journalism education research field.

The Editor-in-Chief of Medijska Istraživanja / Media Research is Nada 
Zgrabljić Rotar and the guest editor of this special issue is Tijana 
Vukić. All submissions and questions about this call for contributions 
should be sent to a special issue editor's email: (tijana.vukic /at/ unipu.hr).

The special issue will appear in the second half of 2023.
The deadline for submissions is November 20, 2022.

The procedure with the received papers for this special issue is 
identical to the procedure for regular publication in the journal 
Medijska istraživanja / Media Research. Submitted articles are subject 
to double-blind review and only those submissions with two positive 
reviews will be published. We seek for 8000 words long articles (about 
50,000 characters). Detailed description of the journal, the journal 
style guide and Guidelines for contributors can be found at 
http://www.mediaresearch.cro.net/en/guidelines-for-contributors/

No payment from the authors will be required before or after the 
editorial process.

This special issue is organized as a project collaboration within the 
three-year (2021-2023) international scientific project Higher Education 
of Journalists in a Digital Environment (HEJDE). It is an institutional 
project of the Faculty of Humanities of the Juraj Dobrila University of 
Pula aimed at the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research of 
the state, challenges and educational opportunities of the modern 
academic education of journalists.

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------