Abstract

Despite a long history of journalism, China started its modern university education in journalism only in the 1920s and under the heavy influence of American journalism education system. However, in the 70-odd years of development since then, China has always seen its journalism education modified and adapted to the different needs in its different development periods, a consistent process of localization in its curriculum and teaching methods as well as its targets. The paper will first discuss the process of localization in the 50 years development of journalism education in China in terms of educational purposes and changes of curriculum. Based on the a survey of the five journalism programs in Shanghai, the paper will then turn to discussion of the diversity and development of the journalism education in Shanghai as showcase, particularly since the 1980s when China witnessed dramatic social changes and rapid economic growth. The paper will also explore the problems of the journalism education in China during its process of localization since the 1980s.

1. Introduction

China’s journalism history could be traced back to Di Bao, a kind of news bulletin in the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) (Fang & Zhang, 1998, p.11). However, the journalism education in the modern sense did not start in China’s universities until the 1920s when American journalism education exerted a direct and great influence on the formative stage of the Chinese journalism. In fact, the overall journalism educational system in China was modeled after the American system (Ding, 1997, p70,). However, in the 50-odd years of development since then, China has always seen its journalism education modified and adapted to the different needs in the different development periods in the modern history of China, a consistent process of localization in its curriculum and teaching methods as well as its targets.

The process of localization for the journalism education in China obviously sped up in the early 1980s when China’s reform and open policy stimulated great social changes and rapid economic growth, a period in which the journalism education in China expanded greatly and became more varied and diversified than ever in history, to meet the increasing demands of media. The number of journalism programs increased almost five times since the early 1980s and student enrollment of journalism programs rose by an average 25 percent each year for all the journalism programs (Guo, 1996, p. 80,).

In this paper, the writer will first discuss the process of localization in the 50-odd years development of journalism education in China in terms of its educational purposes and changes of curricula. Based on a survey of the five journalism programs in Shanghai, the writer will then discuss the variations and diversity of the journalism education in Shanghai, particularly since the 1980s when China witnessed dramatic social changes, earmarked by the economic growth as well as how the five journalism programs have suited the needs of the society as a whole in the period. Finally, the writer will also explore the problems of the journalism education in China during its process of localization since the 1980s.

2. The Concept of Localization: Chinesenized

In today’s China, the concept of localization is very often being applied to research on mass communication in China, a process of how the research of mass communications, originated from the West, can coherently be integrated with local characteristics in China, a country with five thousand years of history and rich cultural and philosophical heritages and also one which was lagged behind in the modern times and needs to revitalize its brilliant past by learning from the West, rather than simply modeling after the West (Shao, 1998)

To a degree, the concept of localization refers to the Chinesenized process of how something foreign or imported is absorbed into the Chinese culture and society, and to the best of China, rather than a simple modeling process of the West. As the journalism education in China started with heavy influence from the American journalism education system, the process of localization for the journalism education in China refers to, in this paper, a the process of how the American model of journalism education or later the Soviet model (Hao &Xu, 1997, p.37) is best tailored to the Chinese practices and society, regardless of the fact that it is good or not so good.

3. Five Stages of Journalism Education in China

Professor DING Ganlin, a famous journalism history expert from Fudan University, has categorized the 70-odd years of journalism education development China into five stages: First Stage (1920s to 1940s), Second Stage (1950s), Third Stage (early and middle 1960s), Fourth Stage (ten years during the Cultural Revolution) and Fifth Stage (since 1978 to present) (Ding, 1997, pp. 70-71).

The writer holds that the process of localization existed in almost all the five stages of the journalism education in China. Although the journalism education was initiated with heavy influence from the American system, there is no doubt that the journalism programs had always been designed to meet the practical needs of the Chinese society, to be exact, the media development. After listing the five stages, Professor DING concluded that except for the chaotic ten-year Cultural Revolution stage, each stage had clear and effective targets and curriculum systems for its journalism education, which basically met the social needs in the relevant stage of social development and that the journalism graduates had proved themselves to be qualified enough in each stage (Ding,1997, p. 71).

During the first stage, China’s first regular journalism department was established at St. John’s University, a missionary school in Shanghai. This is followed by journalism departments and programs in Yenching University in 1924 and Fudan University in 1929, and several others in the 1930s and 1940s ( Hao & Xu,1997 / Zhou,1992). All these early journalism departments and programs borrowed from the American educational system. For instance, the Journalism Department at Fudan University was based on the system of the Journalism College of Missouri University, with a four-year program which had 34 journalistic courses and required a total of 89 credits.

As is known, this is the warring period in the history of China, in which newspapers were set up by different political sectors of the society and needed a lot of journalists and management staff. As a result, the target of a journalism program was set as “training of the editing and managing personnel for Chinese newspapers.” To tailor the programs to the Chinese society in this warring period when, courses like Military Education, Geography, Newspaper Organization and Management and Chinese Language were added to the program as selective courses (Ding, P. 70,1997).

Meanwhile, the Communists under Mao Zedong also started training their cadres for journalistic purposes in their areas under control ( Hao & Xu, 1997). And the focus of this kind of journalistic training was on political courses and courses that dealt with current affairs and policies (Ding, 1997, p.70,). This was of special importance to a period when the Communist Party fought with the Japanese and later on the Nationalist Party.

The second stage saw the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and also the beginning of a tense relationship between China and the United States and a warm-up between China and the Soviet Union. The target of the journalism education in China was modified to “training of news writing personnel with solid political foundation and potential.” This reflected the single purpose of the media at the time, which was soon coupled with a strong sense of political orientation (Ding, 1997, p. 70)

As a result, the journalism programs in China were soon re-organized, with Marxist-Leninist theories added to the curriculum and the Soviet model replaced the American model in the curriculum design and teaching methods, which emphasized service to the working class and basic political knowledge and theoretical political learning (Hao & Xu, 1997). The courses like business management and advertising were replaced by the courses like Newspaper’s Mass Work. Journalism students were told that “journalism, in Lenin’s words, should consciously treat itself as part of the party, consciously obey the party and identify with the Party’s political stand” (Hao & Xu, 1997, p3).

It should be noted that the reason why the so called Soviet Model became popular in this stage of China is because it was more relevant or easier to be localized to the Chinese society at the that time due to the similarities in ideology and political system.

In the third stage after China broke up with the Soviet Union, China became more realistic and self-dependent. The target of the journalism education was shifted on the “the training of journalistic teaching and research personnel.” The curriculum of journalism education favored the courses on theories and cultures and history knowledge, which deviated from the Soviet Model and suited the Chinese better (Ding, 1997.). However, this did not last very long. The normal journalism education was soon interrupted in the mid 1960s (the forth stage) when the chaotic ten-year “Cultural Revolution” started. All the students and teachers were required to go to the countryside. Although new students who had been workers, farmers or soldiers were still enrolled, they no longer underwent the normal journalism education but were evaluated with their political attitude rather than academic performances (Ding, 1997,/ Hao & Xu, 1997).

In these two stages, the journalism education in China experienced great ups and downs and was surely characterized by the chaotic period of time in China. For most Chinese, they may feel a bit awkward to regard it as a kind of localization process, but it is surely true that journalism education at this time was modified and adapted to such a way that it satisfied the political needs of this special period in the history of China, for better or for worse.

In the fifth stage, the reform and open policy started in the early 1980 brought about the dramatic social changes and rapid economic growth, unprecedented in the history of China. The changes also stimulated the media development, particularly TV industry. The number of TV stations in 1986 was almost six times that in 1983. Meanwhile, the rise of TV set ownership per 100 households from 1983 to 1986 also triggered the expansion of the TV audience size (Guo, 1996, p.81). Besides, the relative competitive operations of the media also led to the increase of pages of newspapers and liveliness of reporting style. In the past 20 years, almost every newspaper in China has tripled their number of pages, which doubled their amount of news reports (Guo, 1996, p.81). In an effort to attract more advertisers, media in China also employed more lively reporting styles such as phone-in hotlines, talk shows, field reporting, criticism reports (negative), larger pictures and separated pages for finance, sports and entertainment.

The rapid media developments have left the industry in great demand of more professional and qualified journalists and editors, who are supposed to come from the traditional journalism education. Besides, the media’s emphasis on external reporting, radio and TV, management, advertising and public relations not only resulted in a greater demand of traditional reporters and editors but also required a more diversified and special training from their new recruitment ( Ding,1997, p.71).

In this stage, the process of localization has been intensified to an unprecedented level, in that journalism education in China has been tailored to meet the growing demand of the media industry in the country and in a practical way. The journalism programs increased from the original 14 programs in 1982 to 57 in 1996 and the student enrollment also grew from 726 in 1980 (Greenberg & Lau, 1989) to 6,186 in 1997 ( Hao & Xu,1997, p 40,).

Despite the expansion of journalism programs and increase of journalism student enrollment, journalism education in China has also become more diversified or more localized in its own sequences. In an effort to carry out effective communication to the outside world, China started its international journalism education in five universities in 1983, that basically integrates journalistic training with English learning and aims to train for Chinese media reporters and editors who are qualified enough to be internationally communicative (Guo, 1996, pp.77-88,) because they could both understand foreign and Chinese cultures and master the Western style of news reporting (Hao & Xu,1997, p.38). The international journalism program is certainly unique to the Chinese society and meets the increasing demands of the country that needs to be open to and to exchange and cooperate with the outside world after a long period of separation since 1949. It is more so considering that the fact that the formation of the Chinese language is so different from that of western languages and may create some problems for China to be engaged in effective communication with the rest of the world (Guo, 1998).

In addition to international journalism programs, the expansion of other sequences such as sport journalism, photojournalism as well as advertising, public relations and radio and TV broadcasting, have also added greatly to the scope and variety of the process of localization of the journalism education in China. Although the Journalism Discipline was officially renamed as the Journalism & Communication Discipline by the Ministry of Education in 1998, which include four sub disciplines: namely Journalism (print), Radio & TV Broadcasting, Advertising and Publishing (A Guidebook to Shanghai International Studies University), many journalism programs in China still keep their former journalistic priorities or educational orientations under the new sub disciplines as is demonstrated in the development of the five programs in five universities in Shanghai.

4. Five Journalism Programs in Shanghai ----- A Show Case.

Table One

Table One shows the expansion boom of journalism education in the Fifth Stage also occurred in Shanghai. As we can see, all the other four journalism programs in Shanghai were established from 1983 to 1996. However, this is also the a period in which the process of localization is most obvious as is reflected in the following three trends:

Firstly, all the above journalism programs have their own distinctive features when they were established and are targeted to meet the growing and diversified demands of the media development in Shanghai as well as across China.

As is mentioned above, the local journalism education in Shanghai started with the establishment of the Journalism Department in Fudan University in 1929. Though modeled after the Journalism College of Missouri University at the very beginning, the Journalism Department (now Journalism College) of Fudan University has basically undergone the above five stages of journalism education development, or what this paper has considered to be a process of localization. After 80 years of localization, the Journalism College of Fudan University has developed itself into a journalism program with Chinese characteristics (Ding,1997) and has become one of the two flagships of journalism programs (The other is the journalism program of the People’s University) across China. The Fudan Journalism College not only has its traditional sequence in Journalism, but has expanded to other sequences of radio & TV broadcasting, advertising and international journalism as well. Besides, it enrolls students on all levels, including doctoral students, master students and undergraduates (Zhang, 1999).

Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), which started as foreign language school, lays great emphasis on the training of the English language ability in its journalism program. Because of its language advantage, it is natural SISU was selected as one of the five universities to start its international journalism program in 1983 and is one of few universities in China that still plays up its sequential focus on international journalism. International journalism, which integrates English language skills training with journalism, is certainly unparalleled in the rest part of the world and is very Chinese to the Chinese society (Qian, 1999).

Shanghai University emphasizes the Radio & TV Broadcasting as it is a local comprehensive university in Shanghai and has special appeal among local students in Shanghai. Its Radio & TV program was established in 1987, a time when Shanghai was preparing to set up its second radio station (Eastern Radio Station) and second TV station (Eastern TV Station) in 1992, a breakup of the practice of one radio and TV station in one Chinese city since 1949 (Guo, 1999, p.82).

Shanghai Sports Institute (SSI) started its sports journalism program in 1989, just one year after China joined the Olympic Games in Los Angles in 1988, the first time since 1949. The sports journalism program of SSI, maybe the only one in China, has sent hundreds of sports journalists to all the media in China in the past years and helped promote the colorful reporting of sports activities and expansion of the sports pages of Chinese media since 1988 (Ren, 1999).

The journalism program of Jiaotong University, though a bit late in its establishment, plays up its technological advantage of the University and emphasizes the improving technology involved in the Radio & TV Broadcasting. Particularly with modern communication technologies such as digitalization and internet, when the traditional reporting and editing are somewhat being replaced by the electronic editing, journalism students from Jiaotong University are sure to find their right positions in the fast developing media industry in China (Chen, 1999).

As a result, inter-relationship with other disciplines has become a dominant feature of the journalism education in Shanghai and this second trend is most typically reflected in the designs of the curricula of the five journalism programs in Shanghai, with their respective sequential focuses. The Fudan journalism program, the oldest and also the largest in Shanghai, focuses on almost all the majors such as journalism (print), radio & TV broadcasting and advertising. A survey of its journalism program curriculum in 1998 shows all the students are required to take at least 30% of credit hours not related with journalism and mass communication (Guidebook to SISU,1999). SHEN Yongbao, deputy director of the Dean’s Office of Fudan, said this had helped to expand the range of knowledge for journalism students and would be beneficial to their future careers (Shen,1999).

Started as a language school, SISU, played up its linguistic advantage in its journalism program. SISU journalism students are required to take all the basic English courses for English majors, which takes care of the four English skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing. Students are required to write news stories in English. Besides the English courses, about 45% of the journalistic courses are conducted in English (Guidebook to SISU, 1999) either by Chinese instructors or American journalism professors. Meanwhile, Shanghai Sports Institute pays close attention to sports, with about 35 % of all the courses devoted to sports events, according to REN Guangxue, dean of the Journalism Department. Shanghai University and Jiaotong University, on the other hand, makes use of their technological advantages to focus on radio & TV broadcasting. Students are expected to work skillfully in the campus studios before they go to the radio and TV industry (Wang, 1999).

At present, although the journalism education in the country is yet to make a substantial impact on journalistic practice in the country and journalism educators in the country are yet to gain the authority to provide theoretical, practical, and training guidance for the media industry (Hao & Xu, 1997, p.35 ), journalism education in Shanghai is certainly to have been closely related to the media via the student’s internship programs in media institutions, regarded as a kind of cooperative education between journalism programs and media in recent years. To some degree, media institutions have become a kind of “natural media labs” for the journalism programs in Shanghai while at the same time, assisting to develop themselves (Zhang, 1998)

This can be the third trend in the process of localization since the 1980s: recognition of the importance of journalistic practice for journalism students among all the five journalism programs in Shanghai (It may be true in all the journalism programs in China). In their curricula, all the journalism programs in Shanghai have required their students to complete a four-to-six-month period of organized journalistic internship in various media in their sixth or seventh semester of their undergraduate years. Besides, students are also encouraged to participate, during their vacations, in a relatively short period of internship (two months) at media institutions and participating students are given credits based on the evaluation of their performances.

The fact that journalistic practice is so much emphasized among the journalism programs in Shanghai also lies in the Chinese perspective of localization, because the internship practice is beneficial to all the parties of internship programs (Guo, 1998). To students, they have been offered the chance during the internship to apply or enrich what they have learned from classroom into practice, or learn something outside, or even what can not be learned in the classroom, taking the fact that the most Chinese journalism teachers lack practical media experience and most universities lack sufficient funding to create enough media labs for students.

What is more, it is also a good opportunity to attain their academic proficiency and even the availability of future professions that may best suit their own professional talents. In a survey done among the former and future student interns at SISU in 1998, 80% of the former and future interns think internship has widened or will widen their scope of knowledge. 80% of the former interns agreed that internship helped them to better prepare for challenges while 76% of the future interns think it will help them to be better prepared. Besides, most students interns (61% for the former interns and 48% for the future interns) have used what they learned in the classroom into the practice and have helped or will help them find a good job (83% for the former interns and 88% of the future interns) (Guo, 1998).

In a phone interview, the five directors of the student’s division in charge of the student’s jobs in the five universities confirmed that internship has offered a good chance for students to find their jobs. They also confirmed that, during the past five years, 50% to 65% of the journalism students can directly go to work in the media institutions where they have serviced under the Internship Program, and another 20% of the graduates can find jobs in media-related institutions (such as PR and advertising) companies because of their internship experiences and performances (Wang, 1999).

The internship has certainly benefited the media institutions as well in a sense that it has provided a possible channel of recruitment of new staff members for these media institutions as they have a period of four to six months to observe and evaluate the student’s performances during the internship before their formal recruitment. QIN Shaode, the Editor-In-Chief of Jiefang Daily in Shanghai, stressed that Jiefang Daily will not employ a new staff reporter unless he or she has served the internship at Jiefang Daily (Qin, 1997).

Of course, there are other incentives for media institutions to receive the members of the Internship Program. One editor at Shanghai Cable Television Station frankly admitted that the student interns have provided an inflow of “cheap laborers” as well. In case of some large scale events, such as the Shanghai Film Festival or the Asian Games, the student interns have even been positioned as full-time reporters (Gu, May 20, 1999).

Internship has also been beneficial to the curriculum development of the journalism programs at universities. In an effort to make the journalism programs more suitable (or localize) to the media development, most journalism programs in Shanghai have always paid close attention to the students’ feedback after student interns completed their internship as the feedback from students can provide one practical standard to which the department or college can refer to when adjusting and developing its curriculum. For instance, the courses like the Theory of the Marxism have been merged or condensed since 1995, to make room for more practical courses like “Media Management” and “International Communication” (Record, 1998).

5. Problems in the Process of Localization for Journalism Education

Despite the progress, problems may be inevitable in the process of localization of the journalism education, particularly for a big country like China. The writer deem it necessary to learn about the problems before proposing any solutions to these problems. In order to have a more practical understanding of the current problems now facing the journalism education in Shanghai, the writer has conducted a survey among the journalism students as well as some faculty members among the five journalism programs in Shanghai in September 1999.

5.1 Survey

With 17 questions at a pre-test at SISU, the survey has listed 16 questions for students and teachers regarding their majors, overall income, curricula, teaching methods and textbooks and their overall impression of the journalism education now. In September 1999, the survey released 500 sheets of questionnaire for students and 77 sheets for faculty members in the five journalism programs in Shanghai and collected 345 valid sheets of student questionnaire and 22 sheets of faculty questionnaire. Table Two shows the number of students faculty members surveyed.