THE DIDACTIC CHALLENGE

Abstract

The training of journalists in a university context must fulfil a twofold requirement, as it unavoidably has to integrate theory and practice, academic study and practical application—this is the central didactic challenge. There is no doubt, however, that the concepts of theory and practice are employed in a diffuse way in the current debates both within the relevant academic fields and elsewhere. The present article seeks to sketch out the difficulties, which will inescapably arise in any attempt to integrate academic study and practical application within a university, and it relates these difficulties to specific fundamental problems (the problem of definition, the problem of reputation and recognition, the problem of concretisation, etc.). In addition, the author demonstrates by results from his own project work how this integration of theory and practice may be successfully accomplished. The essential purpose of the article is to initiate a didactic debate that meets the demands of the university as well as the requirements of professional practice in equal measure.

Keywords:

• didactic
• journalism education
• journalism training
• theory and practice

Notes

1. It is important to emphasise that my considerations primarily concern the situation in Germany. In this respect, see in particular: Altmeppen (2005), Hömberg (2002), Poerksen et al. (2008a). The latest publication by Deuze (2008) shows, however, that conflicts between theory and practice also exert their impact in other countries; an earlier survey of the situation of journalists' training in Europe and the United States is contained in Fröhlich and Holtz Bacha (2003), where moreover different training curricula are described in concrete detail. At this point I may add a note on the genesis of this contribution: this article has been essentially stimulated by the collaboration with Jens Bergmann. Our initial reflections were first published in 2007 in the journal Fachjournalist (Bergmann and Poerksen, 2007b); the present text includes, furthermore, considerations that I presented for the first time in 2008 in an official lecture on the future of journalistic training at the Free University of Berlin. All translations from the German (see the following quotations) were made by the author.

2. Once again, it is important to stress that this assessment predominantly concerns the German-language areas and the debates about the university training of journalists taking place there: “practice” is commonly demanded, the concept has a fundamentally positive aura, independent of its potential definition, whereas “theory”, by contrast, is usually downgraded in the public discourse. And, just by the way: Peter Fuchs argues from the position of a systems theorist following the tradition of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann who considers the operation of distinction to be a fundamental operation of human thought.

3. The point of departure for this kind of project work was a feeling of multiple discontents. As there are many students today, some quite excellent, who have difficulties in finding a permanent position in the media sector, it might be a good idea, on the one hand, to help them improve their chances of employment by means of exclusive work specimens and journalistic visiting cards. On the other hand, I have always felt and still feel that many students look at the labour market with a sort of depressing faintheartedness, so that it could be one task of the training of journalists to re-create the university as a place of experiencing professional utopianism, encouragement and experimentation.