The revolution in journalism and communication education in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

China's media development and journalism education have changed to meet new demands brought by the politicial and economic reforms. Predicting a need for 5,000 trained journalists per year in the 21 st century, dramatic developments in journalism education are occuring. This . paper describes and evaluates China's journalism education based on a field visit of seven key journalism departments that represent different directions of journalism and commmunication training. The number of journalism schools have increased from 14 in 1982 to 33 in 1986. This increase has given rise to the obvious demand for journalism teachers and teaching materials. Also, student enrollment in journalism schools increased almost five-fold. Before more journalism graduates can be trained, the following areas have to be strengthened. (1) The library resources are few and largely outdated. (2) Qualified faculty are too few. (3) Research activity is not yet highly valued among communication faculty. (4) There is a shortage of necessary equipment. (5) The growing emphasis on the integration of social science-based communication theory and accompanying rigorous research methodologies is more a wish than a reality. (6) There are organizational inhibitions to change. In short, the hardware and software of journalism education have to be improved to provide the desired results.