The Nature of Journalism Courses Devoted to Diversity

Abstract

The mass media have been dealing with their role in a pluralistic society since the 1968 Kerner Commission report criticized the news media for presenting information from a white male perspective. Though the report focused on the portrayals of African-Americans, the news media have also used it to gauge their progress in their portrayals and hiring of people from other racial groups.Journalism educators actively began to address this concern when the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) in 1982 required journalism programs to make effective efforts to recruit, advise, and retain minority students, staff, and women faculty members. Known as Standard 12, this requirement was expanded in 1992 to include curriculum offering courses that prepares students "to understand, cover, communicate with, and relate to amulticultural, multi-racial, and otherwise diverse society" (Ruggles, 1993).This research will focus on the courses devoted entirely to sensitizing Dr educating students about the media's relationship with groups that have experienced long-term discrimination and oppression: women, non-white racial groups, gaysllesbians, and the disabled. These are the types of courses that might be titled, "Race and Gender and the Media," "Race and the Media," "Diversity in the Media," or "Communication and Gender." This research seeks to find out the nature of such courses: What are their objectives? What must students do to earn a grade? What are the in-class and/or out-of-class activities? This research also seeks to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the courses and to assess the extent to which journalism programs are either offering such courses or integrating diversity issues into other journalism classes. For the purpose of consistency, and conciseness, the term minority will be used to refer to these oppressed groups, and the general term for these courses will be courses devoted to diversity.

“The Paper Is White”: Examining Diversity Issues With the Next Generation of Journalists

“…Most U.S. journalism and mass communication programs offer diversity courses and the number of these programs has increased over the past decades (Biswas et al, 2017; Biswas & Izard, 2010; Dickson, 1995; Ross & Patton, 2000). These courses tend to focus on media representations of gender, race, ethnicity, or diversity in general.…”

Locating Whiteness in Journalism Pedagogy

“…Ross and Patton (2000) call for journalism educators to prepare their students for a ''pluralistic society'' where minorities assert economic and political power (p. 25). Baldasty et al (2003) urge university administrators foster a multicultural environment because journalism students ''need a sophisticated sense of the world in which they will work'' (p. 8).…”

Inspiring Critical Consciousness: A Case for a Decolonized Journalism Study Abroad Curriculum

“…Yet, despite ongoing efforts by many, journalism and mass communication education still lacked a substantive multicultural curriculum, and went on to call on university administrators to create a “multicultural learning environment” that centers issues of race, gender, and ethnicity because students “need a sophisticated sense of the world in which they will work” (Baldasty et al, 2003, p. 10). In the years since, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues have been taught and discussed to a greater degree in journalism and communication courses (Biswas & Izard, 2010, 2018; Ross & Patton, 2000). It is generally accepted that universities should continue to create new concrete plans and systems of accountability to implement serious reform to move journalism education toward equality (Wilkinson et al, 2020); there is still, however, a need for more forethought and planning to assess student learning outcomes for diversity and inclusion in curricula (Daniels, 2022).…”