Students Don't Understand Democracy? Look to Journalism Education

Abstract

A troubling reality in contemporary American society is that an extraordinarily large number of our citizens lack even the most rudimentary understanding of the political and philosophical foundations critical to supporting and sustaining our constitutional democracy. Journalism and communication courses can play an important role in the citizenship education of our young people in this regard. Unfortunately, most discussion of the value of journalism and communication courses at the secondary school has focused on how such courses can provide training in skills directly related to newspaper and yearbook production. Too frequently overlooked is the broader educational impact such instruction can provide. This is a particularly important point to make at the secondary school level, where the vast majority of students in such courses will never take a position in the mass communications industry. Journalism and communications education at the secondary school level must first be about what it means to be a citizen in a free society. Although that instruction will invariably center around the issues of freedom of speech/press and the mass media, its impact can transcend those more narrow concerns and speak to considerations central to what it means to be an American in the last decade of the twentieth century.