Journalism Education and Journalism Students in the United States and India
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“THE NOBLE PATH”: JOURNALISM EDUCATION AND JOURNALISM STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND INDIA David Bockino A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Daniel Kreiss Penelope Abernathy Chris Anderson Rasmus Nielsen Daniel Riffe © 2015 David Bockino ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT David Bockino: “The Noble Path”: Journalism Education and Journalism Students in the United States and India (Under the direction of Daniel Kreiss) This dissertation is the first multi-national study empirically combining an investigation of journalism education on an individual level with an investigation of journalism education on an organizational level in the United States and India. Viewed holistically, it contributes to what Deuze (2006) has called, “a lack of rigorous scholarship in the field of (international) journalism education and training” (p. 29) and to what Ninan (2007) has called the “pitiably small” body of work on journalism and journalism education in India. Its specific contributions are three-fold. First, it recasts the history of journalism education (and specifically American journalism education) as the development of a persistent and influential organizational field and utilizes an empirical study of three Indian journalism schools to investigate the influence of this field. This analysis subsequently contributes a new layer of complexity as to why journalism education looks the way it does around the world and suggests that legitimacy within the field is a real concern (and priority) for journalism programs worldwide. Second, it diverges from previous cross-national survey-based studies of the motivations and attitudes of journalism students by instead deploying the tool of habitus in an effort to understand the inherent complexity of a student’s decision to enter journalism school. This design subsequently leads to a less rigid and much deeper examination of these students’ values, iii attitudes, experiences, and expectations and allows for an exploration of not only the complexity within those motivations but also an investigation as to where those motivations came from and how they developed. And third, it again utilizes the concept of habitus to investigate the value, worth, and influence of journalism education by exploring the actions and behaviors of journalism students in the United States and India as they prepare to graduate. Unlike previous studies, which have focused on the perceived efficacy of journalism education, this study explores how lessons imparted through journalism education are actually enacted through specific decisions and choices. It suggests, in the end, that the lessons of journalism school that are most utilized by students as they graduate are the ones that can best be personalized. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 BACKGROUND AND CONTRIBUTIONS ............................................................................. 7 Journalism Education ............................................................................................................. 7 Journalism Students .............................................................................................................. 10 Journalistic Professionalism ................................................................................................. 13 METHOD ................................................................................................................................. 18 The Design ............................................................................................................................ 18 The Data ................................................................................................................................ 20 CHAPTER 2: THE SCHOOLS ................................................................................................. 29 NEW INSTITUTIONALISM ................................................................................................... 33 AMERICAN JOURNALISM EDUCATION AS AN ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD ............ 39 FIELD NOTES: INDIAN JOURNALISM EDUCATION ...................................................... 48 Overview ............................................................................................................................... 48 The Filtering of Personnel .................................................................................................... 51 Analysis of Curriculum ......................................................................................................... 58 Institutional Pull ................................................................................................................... 62 v DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 3: THE STUDENTS ............................................................................................... 73 USING HABITUS AS A METHOD ........................................................................................ 77 The Survey Approach ............................................................................................................ 77 Habitus .................................................................................................................................. 81 MOTIVATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 86 Being a Journalist ................................................................................................................. 87 The Role of a Journalist ........................................................................................................ 94 A Fulfilling Lifestyle ........................................................................................................... 101 The Actual Decision ............................................................................................................ 104 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................... 108 CHAPTER 4: GRADUATION ................................................................................................ 113 THE INFLUENCE OF JOURNALISM EDUCATION ......................................................... 115 THE GRADUATION PROCESS ........................................................................................... 121 The Indian Placement Process ............................................................................................ 121 The American (Non)Placement Process ............................................................................. 137 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................... 146 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 151 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 158 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION I first spoke with Leslie Ann, a 21-year-old American journalism major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in August of her senior year. We discussed her family, where she was from, and why she chose to come to Chapel Hill. She told me that her affinity for journalism, and love of newspapers specifically, developed when she began writing a monthly column for her hometown’s local newspaper, the High Point Enterprise. While enrolled in UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she was exposed to a project called The Durham VOICE. The VOICE, described as a “community-building newspaper,” helped Leslie Ann develop a passion for what is commonly known as community journalism. When I asked her what she hoped to be doing a year from then (i.e. after graduation), she mentioned what she called her “main conflict:” It’s a very noble path to go down, you know, to say I want to write for a community newspaper for the rest of my life, but it’s also maybe not the most realistic path to say that I am going to jump into a community newspaper and be there the rest of my life because in terms of being able to support myself and support a future family, I don’t know if that is always going to be a possibility with newspapers (Leslie Ann, personal communication, September 2013). When I spoke with Leslie Ann again in April, less than two weeks before her graduation from UNC, she had begun working for an experimental digital project at a local broadcast company. It was a way, she said, to merge her love of community journalism with her newfound interest in digital story telling and innovation, something that had emerged from her work at UNC’s Reese News Lab. When I mentioned that it seemed she had pivoted a bit in terms of career path - during our previous conversation, she had never mentioned anything about working 1 for a website or a broadcast company – she concurred, saying “Yeah, a lot has changed” (Leslie Ann, personal communication, April 2014). A month before my first discussion with Leslie Ann, and nearly nine thousand miles away, I sat down with Mayukh, a 21 year-old