Exploring between Two Worlds: China's Journalism Education

Abstract

Despite history of close to 80 years, China's journalism education has yet to make substantial impact on journalistic practice in country. As one Chinese journalism professor (Lin, 1992) noted, journalism educators in country have yet to gain authority to provide theoretical, practical, and training guidance for media industry. A major cause of such situation lies in lack of clear orientation in of China's journalism education. The idea of journalism education was introduced from West when China's young intellectuals began to look toward West for inspirations after pondering over China's repeated defeats at hands of foreign powers in 19th century. They believed that in order to continue its glorious past, China had to borrow ideas from Western powers, most important of which were democracy and science. Against such backdrop, it was no surprise that China's journalism education, which was started as part of efforts to bring about democracy, began under heavy influence of U.S. journalism education, as U.S. was recognized by Chinese educators then as the most advanced country in journalism development and a ready source for journalism studies (Cai, 1994, p.6). With Communists' victory in China, press system transformed itself to take on the form and coloration of social and political structures within which it operates (Siebert, Peterson Sr Schramm, 1963, p.1). To accommodate new system, journalism education had no choice but to abandon American model and look for new model. The Soviet Union, which pioneered Communist movement, naturally provided answer. With unprecedented changes taking place in China's socio-economic and political structures as result of country's modern reforms and opening to outside world, China's journalism educators are at loss for model, but there is no ready answer this time. In Deng Xiaoping's words, they have to depend on themselves to grope for stones as footholds to walk through river. Proceeding from structural functionalism approach, authors believe that major changes in China's journalism education were first and foremost triggered off by country's internal changes rather than direct foreign influence since China has never been fully colonized. At same time, however, China's constant search for inspirations from overseas has also made country's journalism education similar to journalism education elsewhere in many areas. Under such premises, this paper examined historical of China's journalism education and its current exploration for new path. Education in China Although China's journalism history could be traced to as far back as Di Bao, news bulletin published by imperial court during Tang Dynasty in 777 (Fang, Chen & Zhang,1982), journalism did not flourish until 19th century when foreign businessmen and missionaries began to launch various newspapers following invasion of China by colonial powers (Chang, 1989). This was followed by first reformists and then bourgeois revolutionaries who, around end of 19th century, launched their publications to spread ideas against decadent rule of Qing Dynasty. University education in journalism emerged in form of series of lectures started by Journalism Society of Beijing University in 1918 and taught by Xu Baohuang, graduate of journalism from University of Michigan, and Shao Piaoping, well-known Chinese journalist who had studied in Japan. Based on his lecture notes, Xu, who is recognized as founder of China's journalism education, compiled China's first journalism textbook: An Outline of Journalism (Fang, 1994), which was first published in 1919 and reprinted in 1930, 1932, 1937 and 1994. With most of ideas discussed in book based on American textbooks (Fang, 1994), Xu gave rather comprehensive discussion of roles of journalism, news values as well as news gathering, writing and editing techniques. …