Plan now for the 2nd Congress (WJEC2): 5-7 July 2010
JOURNALISM EDUCATION IN AN AGE OF RADICAL CHANGE
Here's what the second World Journalism Education Congress offers journalism educators:
Networking with global peers on really hot topics at an event with an African flavour.
AND a chance to hear Nobel prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu - the closing keynote speaker.
Plus: Exposure to more than 150 research papers. Peer-review judges are now examining the abstracts that were submitted standard, and a final list will be confirmed in January. A safari prize will go to the best paper.
We are in discussion with various funders for support for scholarships for participation for selected delegates from Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. These are not yet finalised, but we do urge hopeful candidates to nevertheless send in an Abstract by due date. While we can't guarantee a scholarship, you will only be eligible for consideration if your Abstract is in, and accepted for the programme. Don't let the current high prices of airfares put you off considering attendance - we're advised they will come down after the December rush for World Cup bookings. February is a better time to book.
The Congress falls in the second half of the 2010 FIFA World Soccer Cup being staged in South Africa . The city of Port Elizabeth, close to Grahamstown, is a host city for FIFA matches. Grahamstown itself will have spectator parks.
The WJEC kicks off immediately after South Africa's internationally renowned National Arts Festival, which showcases a full range of cultural activity and entertainment. WJEC delegates can come a day or two earlier and enjoy some of this amazing experience.
Overlapping with WJEC-2 is the Highway Africa conference, celebrating its 14th year in 2010, and drawing hundreds of working journalists from more than 40 of Africa's 54 countries.
You'd like to join the action? There will be many opportunities to network and contribute to proceedings.
The deadlines are now closed for presenting and judging research papers, and for volunteering for an expert panel. BUT if you missed that boat, don't worry. All sessions will be structured to allow for maximum audience participation. There are three syndicate sessions where everyone will be encouraged to insert expertise into task groups that are developing positions on burning questions. Luncheons will have tables set up for people interested in particular themes.
You can also bring examples of your student work or your own publications. Significantly, you will ample access to be able to blog and twitter about the debates to your people back home.
You could be a passive spectator if you wish - but this is an event designed to generate social capital from attendees!
If you have submitted an abstract for a paper, you can expect to hear by end January if it's accepted for presentation. If so, please work on the full paper at the WJEC itself - maximum length 6000 words. Completed papers are due by April 30, 2010. The congress is a time to debate original and cutting edge research into journalism education and media issues, to global colleagues who can give you high-level feedback.
Holding WJEC in an African country will go a long way towards exposing visitors from abroad to the issues in a neglected and marginalised continent. Too often, Africa is assumed to be a single thing, with Africans homogenised into humans untarnished by modernisation or alternatively people prone to acting dangerously. The "noble savage" stereotype.
Of course, Africa's 53 (or depending on how you count, 54) countries are 1001 things - good, bad and mixed. But how the complexity gets reported both internally and internationally is an important issue in global media.
Journalism education can make a difference here. To that end, Prof Fackson Banda, SAB UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy is leading a consultation process for a course on "Reporting Africa". The process, supported by UNESCO, should result in a CD we can distribute at the WJEC.
If you have opinions or ideas, and/or can point to good resource materials, join in!
Formal Executive Summary
This project aims to research, develop and disseminate a possible syllabus on reporting Africa based on the UNESCO model curricula for journalism education for developing countries and emerging democracies. The syllabus is an attempt at addressing the paucity of teaching and learning materials on reporting Africa. The curriculum is meant to provide a conceptually relevant and practically sophisticated basis for reporting a culturally diverse continent in continual flux. The syllabus, once researched and developed, will be subject to wide-ranging consultation and validation - not least through the WJEC-inspired panel on reporting Africa - before it is finally published and disseminated throughout the world. As such, an important element of this intellectual process is for African journalism and media experts and scholars to reclaim the epistemological and ontological ground in articulating a vision of journalistic practice that is rooted in their lived experiences.
You can access the full project document from here and the consultation for the development of the model curriculum will be carried on at http://journalismschools.unesco-ci.org.
Who's coming?
We've had positive indications from:
Dan Gilmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and author of We The Media. (USA)
Mindy McAdams, University of Florida, author of blog Teaching Online Journalism. (USA)
LI Liangrong, Fudan University, President of Chinese Communications Association.
Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas, Austin, and president of Orbicom - the network of UNESCO chairs in communication. (USA)
Stephen Quinn, Deakin University, Australia, and author of many books on media convergence and globalmojo.org.
Pascal Guenee, Directeur, Institut Pratique de Journalisme, Dauphine University, Paris, and president of the Theophraste network of Francophone journalism schools. (France)
Geneva Overholser, Director of School of Journalism, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Some 40 journalism educators from around Africa convened at Rhodes University on Sept 9 to present preliminary research papers and to plan for the WJEC. Prof Fackson Banda (above) - the SAB UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy at Rhodes - convened the event. His overview paper on the state of research into Journalism Education in Africa is available for download here.
