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By Dr Mira K Desai As the various branches of the media industry have grown and become more popular and hugely lucrative, the education and training of media professionals to meet the growing demand has become crucial. Yet, as this analysis shows, though there has been an explosion of private training and education institutes, they are more interested in ‘placing’ their students than in equipping them with the complex skills necessary to do a good job as a media professional
Television news channels were criticised for their often insensitive reporting of the terrorist attack in Mumbai in November 2008. Several Hindi films make fun of television news people, and stories about the unprofessional and unethical behaviour of media people are rife. So, who are these people who ‘report/record/write’ for the media? How are these media professionals made? Where were they trained and who trained them? What is their academic or other background, and what motivates them? The issue of communication and media education has been of little concern even to the media industry itself. This is evident from the fact that FICCI-Frames, the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries’ annual media and entertainment event (http://www.ficci-frames.com), has since its inception in 2000, addressed the issue of human resources in the media industry only three times. The panel was titled ‘Education and manpower training’ in 2002, and ‘Education and manpower training: Mandatory for growth’ in 2003. The theme was re-tuned in 2008 and titled ‘Talent crunch in the media and entertainment industry’, which implies that media professionals are viewed as ‘talent’ and ‘manpower’ not as a ‘resource’ by the industry itself. The impact of media coverage can be wide-ranging. When the TV channel Janmat aired a fake sting operation in September 2007 involving the Delhi schoolteacher Uma Khurana, it led to near-riots in the Daryaganj area and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting banned the channel for one month. What kind of journalists made such a story and what kind of journalists choose to work for such a channel? In an article in the media portal thehoot, Vasuki Belavadi estimates that India has over 200 media institutes today from around 25 in the early 1980s. By the end of 2010, India will require about 15,00,000 media professionals. Many more institutes, far too many courses, a lot of private investment in training to get ‘jobs’ in the media ‘industry’, the privatisation of media and so more ‘market’ interest in communication/media education are some of the global as well as local realities of the 21st century. Formal training Today, more media professionals are formally trained than ever before. Traditionally, people who worked in media in India - which then consisted mainly of print and radio - learnt mostly on the job, from their seniors. Mentoring, as it is known today, experiential learning, and apprenticeship have been the historical processes in making media professionals. Another avenue was formal training in Western countries, which had university or professional courses that were nascent in India. Private investment in training for media jobs is a recent phenomenon in India. Today, there are private, government, corporate and semi-government institutions, and even individuals, offering degree, diploma, and certificate courses under a variety of categories. Media jobs demand a certain kind of temperament. The ability to handle pressure, deliver on time, deal with a variety of people, sometimes work in a group, and innovate, are requirements of a media professional. No training institute has a curriculum that imparts training in these areas; mostly they offer a variety of subjects, skill building, and to an extent, critical ability related to the subject. The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre of India (AMIC), which is based on the syllabi of 15 communication/media institutions, lists 78 topics/subjects. This includes theoretical inputs such as the history of journalism, sociology, and ethics and practical aspects of scriptwriting, reporting, editing, creative writing and so on. In an article ‘Where go communication studies and media education?’ Writing in the Journal of Communication Studies, Arul Aram comments: “Mass communication education in Indian universities lacks focus. Both training aspects (professional aspects) and criticism (media studies) are included in the same programme. But both these aspects leave much to be desired”. It has also been observed that apart from balancing theory and practice, the challenge is also to define the scope of the programme. The one-year diploma programme with a ‘generic’ course can produce a student who is a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, which is a disadvantage in a super-specialised work environment. At the same time, focused programmes can narrow job opportunities and create limited understanding among students. An integrated, holistic curriculum in ‘mass communication’ is a concern as well as a critical challenge in the Indian environment. Unlike other disciplines, teachers in communication/media education are expected to have both practical and theoretical knowledge of their subject. They have to ‘know’, and ‘teach’ as well as ‘apply’ things in their own classrooms, which can correlate to the media industry. This is a challenge, as a good film director may not make a good teacher of direction and vice versa. Recruiting faculty It is very difficult to get qualified and learned full time faculty. Besides, not all industry professionals are good teachers. Being a great writer and teaching someone to write are two different things. A technician working in the mainstream may not have patience and perspective to teach students. There are also issues related to continuity of faculty, relevance of the curriculum to keep pace with changes in the industry, the weight the teacher attaches to theory versus practice and so on. M J Pereira, director of the well-known Xavier Institute of Communications (XIC), Mumbai, said in a note presented at a seminar hosted by the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre and Symbiosis: “The management of any communication school knows that one of its most important tasks is how to recruit skilled faculty, how to keep them and how to improve the quality of their teaching”. He goes on to comment, “A common source for faculty recruitment in most communication schools is the retired professional. While this has its attractions, in the rapidly changing media fields today, it is not always proven that an ‘old dog can teach new tricks’…Faculty members who unconsciously project need for high remunerations for their work do a disservice to the students they teach, for it is but a short step to the students themselves taking on the same mercenary values of their teachers.” Eric Loo in his article ‘Journalism training: Are you a coach or a player?’ raises the question of pedagogy of teaching in a classroom vis-à-vis a workshop of practicing journalists and remarks, “In reality, neither academic qualification nor industry experience exclusively has necessarily resulted in effective journalism teaching in the classroom.” In the era of privatisation, the production ideology is now being applied to educational institutions. Like a manufacturing unit that has to sell all its production, an educational institution has to place all its students. However, the ultimate goal of education is not to make students like spare parts of a machine, but to make them thinking beings. In the hurry to place students in jobs, many private institutions forget that their job is to train the student and not to act as placement agents. The making of media professionals is not only a training and human resource issue, but also a matter of how a society invests in its future. People who work in media undergo – or should undergo - a process of growth as individuals. That probably is the reason why most actors look awful in their first film and look and act better as time goes by. International scene Globally there has been considerable thinking on the subject of media education and training. The first World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) took place in 2007 during the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre’s Annual Conference in Singapore. Members from 28 journalism education associations from six continents identified 11 principles to serve as a standard for journalism education worldwide. Guided by these 11 principles (see http://wjec.ou.edu/principles.html), members of the World Journalism Education Council (http://wjec.ou.edu) pledged to work together to strengthen journalism education and increase its value to students, employers and the public. Guy Berger, head of the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, commented in an article in Converse that “the WJEC declaration does well by stating that: journalism education is an academic field in its own right, with a distinctive body of knowledge and theory; journalism educators should be a blend of academics and practitioners; and journalism educators should maintain strong links to media industries, and critically reflect on industry practices and offer advice to industry based on this reflection.” He further adds, “recognising global issues, the declaration notes: journalism students should learn that despite political and cultural differences, they share important values and professional goals with peers in other nations; and there should be global collaboration to boost journalism education as an academic discipline and ensure that it plays a more effective role in strengthening journalism.” On the occasion of the WJEC, UNESCO released its ‘Model curricula for journalism education for developing countries and emerging democracies’. The booklet includes detailed sample syllabi and a list of expected journalism competencies based on the European Journalism Training Association’s Tartu [Estonia] Declaration adopted in 2006. (The booklet can be viewed at www.unesdoc.unesco.org) In ‘Putting theory to practice: A critical approach to journalism studies’, David Skinner, Mike J Gasher and James Compton argue that the ‘journalism curriculum must not only equip students with a particular skill set and broad social knowledge, but must also show students how journalism participates in the production and circulation of meaning’. On similar lines Hugo De Burgh states, in ‘Skills are not enough, The case for journalism as an academic discipline’, remarks that journalism can be taught as, and should be regarded as, a serious academic discipline and not simply as vocational training. In an article ‘Transmission or communication: Critical studies of media’, Kishore Budha quotes Dr Paul Taylor: “Academic discourse and university departments are disproportionately geared towards training students to work in such a transmission-orientated environment rather than educating them as to how to engage critically with such a system…Students entering the field should expect to undergo training rather than education. The fact that universities are part of this problem is shameful given that their responsibility has traditionally been education - first and foremost. Yes, certain subjects have always required elements of training - eg, you want your doctors and dentists to have certain practical skills, but I also want any doctor I visit to have a theoretical knowledge of basic science and biology so that they can think about my medical problem in a reflective manner. This distinction is increasingly being lost.” Accreditation Some of the international bodies that accredit and regulate journalism institutes are the Accreditation Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) in the United States of America, European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) in Europe, and the Council for Accreditation in Journalism Education (CLAEP) in Latin America. In India, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an autonomous body established by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to assess and accredit institutions of higher education in the country. It is an outcome of the recommendations of the National Policy in Education (1986) that laid special emphasis on upholding the quality of higher education in India. But there is no separate body to ensure quality of communication/media courses. Also, communication/media courses are under the purview of the UGC as well as the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) since many of them are run as technical courses. The distinction between journalism education and media studies or other forms of mass communication education is far sharper in Western countries than in India. In India, most universities still run journalism courses, and new courses are in the domain of communication or media studies. India does not have a professional association of communication/media educators. Today, any and every institute offering a media or ‘Masscom’ course claims to have provided 100% placement. But what do these media courses consist of and what is their role in the making of media professionals? Curriculum issues Any academic programme, and so also any media education programme, needs to have a clear scope, curricular objectives, students to enrol for those courses, pedagogy of implementing that curriculum, means to evaluate the objectives of the curriculum, research to enhance the discipline and assurance of quality of the entire educational process. Media, be it print, electronic or ‘new’ media, is hardware as well as software, technology as well as technique/presentation, art as well as science, skills as well as perspectives. Media consolidates performing arts, literary arts and fine arts. The nomenclature for communication/media education is as varied as ‘journalism’, ‘communication studies’, ‘media studies’, ‘mass communication’, ‘communication arts’ and so on. The more narrowed down titles have been on the lines of ‘advertising’, ‘public relations’, ‘media management’, ‘brand management’, ‘broadcast journalism’ and so on. As Tanmoy Neog notes in an article in Business World, “While the demand figure (human resources in media industries) is not very clear — industry observers estimate demand to be in excess of one lakh — the supply from media schools is only about 6,000, with 80% of them trained on the content side.” Course content: Apart from theory versus practical, the scope of the communication/media education course is the biggest challenge. The media sector has creative, technical, logistic and strategic requirements. While most courses in India follow only two distinctions - technical versus content - most train students in content. The need for an all-inclusive, holistic course is immense. Apart from designing the curriculum, which faces the challenges of constantly changing technology, audiences, and political and economic environments, the struggle is to remain relevant as an academic set-up. Lack of textbooks: Textbooks relevant to the Indian context are hard to come by. Most of the available material is meant for Western students. Local practices are rarely available in the form of case studies. Theory remains isolated from practice as most teachers who are capable of theory building are not necessarily practitioners and vice versa. Very few books are either written by Indian authors or have an Indian context. Pedagogy of instruction: In communication/media education, most subjects demand a ‘learning by doing’ approach. When faculty members give out projects/assignments for students to do, some students view this as the teacher not doing his/her job. Students have been critical of ‘faculty members who are not able to critically evaluate their work’ and say they have not learnt much out of the exercise. In such circumstances the task is to help students ‘learn to learn on their own’ rather then ‘teaching’. The readiness on the part of learners becomes a crucial factor, as many media students are not looking at learning but at lucrative salary packages and the glamour that has come to be associated with the media sector. Teachers who have little real media environment experience contribute little to the classroom, leading to communication/media courses being mere degree/diploma gathering exercises for students. Research and teaching linkage: Being an academic discipline in its own right communication/media education or even journalism courses have to create research to enhance teaching practices. Unfortunately, in India, the link between the media industry and academic set-ups is very weak. Very few working professionals think it is their responsibility to contribute to the academic process, and, at the same time, very few academics have day-to-day association with media set-ups. Any research by the industry is purely applied and is on sale, which is beyond the capacity of academic institutes to purchase monetarily, while most of the academic research is of ‘pure’ nature and looked down upon by practising media professionals. Methodology of evaluation/assessment/examination: A student who tops the class does not necessarily make a good media professional. This is true of any discipline but examinations are an essential aspect of education pedagogy. Professionals who come to teach often question the purpose of evaluation. There are teachers who evaluate student work at par with professional output without considering the constraints of academic institutions. There are professionals who have given equal marks to all students on the grounds that they had all put in a lot of work, thus leaving no motivation for those going the extra mile. An additional problem is striking a balance between theory and application when setting or evaluating an examination paper. If the examiner comes from a professional background, he/she expects students to respond to application-oriented questions, while an academician setting a paper wants to evaluate the theory and conceptual orientation of the students. Outcome of communication/media education: The trouble with communication/media education is two-fold. Is the academic programme geared towards sending students into the workplace or is the idea to train them to look at the wider implications of mass communication? Tanmoy Neog notes: “Till the early 1990s, the theoretical and ideological foundations of media education in India had largely been developed within a closed industry scenario dominated by large government-owned broadcasters. Things changed once private broadcasting took off.” Private media houses that put more emphasis on ‘skills’ rather than ‘formal qualifications’ are now demanding more and more professionals. Anupam Kher, actor and ex-chairman of the National School of Drama, who also runs his own school Actorprepares, speaking at the FICCI-Frames 2003 session on ‘Education and Manpower Training: Mandatory for Growth’ said: “It has been an 18-year journey in cinema with 290 films, of which only three scripts were bound, the others relying completely on improvisation. But now, in the last six months alone, I have had ten film offers, eight of them accompanied by bound scripts. Because you can no longer survive unless you are a trained professional actor, director, cinematographer” (http://www.ficci-frames.com/Archive/2003/synopsis/ education.htm). M J Pereira aptly defined the change in the media environment: “Formerly journalism was a mission, today, it is merchandising of information. Formerly cinema was art, or at least entertainment. Today with growing costs of film production, access to international markets is vital and dictates content and form. Market dominance is a value, public interest isn’t any more.” Obviously this is going to impact all the stakeholders of communication/media education. Arul Aram brings in an interesting dimension. He remarks, “Vernacular media cannot afford to pay (rather do not pay) much. And most media that pay well are English ones, and only they prefer university specialisation. But given the paucity of English knowledge among post-colonial students, the media goes in for English literature graduates rather than Mass Communication graduates.” Assurance of quality: There is no formal accreditation for communication/media courses in India as there is in the West. For example, 22 countries of the European Union and 48 schools across Europe are members of EJTA (European Journalism Training Association). The Tartu Declaration of 2006 (http://www.ejta.eu/index.php/website/projects/) has created common standards for quality assurance and student mobility, that is, students can move from one university/institute to another by doing credit transfers and even take joint degrees. In India, even a complete list of communication/media courses is not available in one place leave alone a list of professional associations of communication/media teachers. Students who choose communication/media courses, on the basis of advertisements need to check that the competent authorities have accredited the institute they are opting for. Government bodies like the University Grants Commission or the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) recognise institutes offering communication/media courses in India. Private institutes offering diploma and certificates without accreditation from UGC or AICTE may or may not guarantee quality of education. More questions than answers In ‘Limited diversity in media newsrooms’, B P Sanjay quotes a survey of 37 media organisations in Delhi carried out by the Centre for Social and Development Studies and notes, “Hindu upper caste men hold nearly 71% of top jobs in the national media. Women, non-upper castes and Muslims are grossly under-represented”. In 2006 A S Balasubramanya reported the findings of a national survey of journalists in India covering 835 journalists working in 11 different language publications spread over 14 states and seven union territories. The survey found that only one-third of the journalists surveyed had formal education in journalism at graduate or postgraduate level including diplomas or certificates of which 9% had formal training abroad. The majority (75%) were young (20 to 40 years of age), 60% were educated in urban areas and for 72% it was their first job. Who attends communication/media programmes is an interesting area to research. It would also be interesting to find out how many media practitioners come from media schools. The fundamental question is: are the hundreds of communication/media education institutions making a difference to Indian society and in what way? Journalists must start asking questions about what they write/report and why they write/report what they do and the implications of their work on society, a process that their education should teach them to do. If expensively funded private institutions that charge high fees are to become the order of the day then only the well heeled will be able to afford them, giving an upper class bias to news and reporting. Communication/media and journalism education needs more scholarships and social sensitivity training if it wants to play a more equitable role in society. (Dr Mira K Desai is a Reader in Communication Technology at the SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. She can be reached at
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