Bridging the Knowledge Divide: Journalism Education and Industry Needs in East and Southern Africa

Abstract

This study explores the perceived gap between journalism education and professional practice in Tanzania and Zambia. Through interviews with educators and journalists and an analysis of 12 journalism curricula, the findings reveal that both educators and journalists acknowledged a gap, with a shared desire for improved alignment between academic programs and industry needs. Educators expressed a commitment to incorporating contemporary content, but face challenges like limited industry collaboration and resource constraints. Journalists, however, observed a hesitancy among educators in implementing recommendations from the industry. Both groups see the need for integrating theory and practice into the curricula.

Keywords

journalism education practice curricula reforms academia-industry relationship

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adjin-Tettey

T. D.

(2024). From the classroom to the African newsroom: How journalism education can bridge the gap between the classroom and the shrinking newsroom. African Journalism Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2024.2321133

Appiah-Adjei

(2024). Journalism education and sustainable journalism in Ghana. Journalism Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2340514

Atton

(2008). Alternative media theory and journalism practice. In Boler

(Ed.), Digital media and democracy: Tactics in hard times (Chapter 8, pp. 213–228). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7687.003.0012

Banda

Beukes-Amiss

C. M.

Bosch

Mano

McLean

Steenveld

(2007). Contextualising journalism education and training in Southern Africa: Special research focus: Journalism education in Africa. Ecquid Novi, 28(1–2), 156–175.

Bazeley

Jackson

(2013). Qualitative data analysis with NVivo. 2nd ed. Sage.

Berger

(2011). Empowering the youth as citizens through news: A South African experience. Journal of African Media Studies, 3(2), 211–222.

Boczkowski

P. J.

Mitchelstein

Matassi

(2018). “News comes across when I’m in a moment of leisure”: Understanding the practices of incidental news consumption on social media. New Media & Society, 20(10), 3523–3539.

Booker

Mutsvairo

Baliah

Adjin-Tettey

T. D.

Holt

Tallert

Mujati

(2024). Putting forward sustainability as a model for journalism education and training. Journalism Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2344626

Brock-Utne

Holmarsdottir

H. B.

(2004). Language policies and practices in Tanzania and South Africa: Problems and challenges. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(1), 67–83.

10.

Chadwick

(2017). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford University Press.

11.

Cheruiyot

Wahutu

J. S.

Mare

Ogola

Mabweazara

H. M.

(2021). Making news outside legacy media: Peripheral actors within an African communication ecology. African Journalism Studies, 42(4), 1–14.

12.

Chuma

(2018). Journalism, politics and professionalism in Zimbabwe. In Mabweazara

H. M.

(Ed.), Newsmaking cultures in Africa: Normative trends in the dynamics of socio-political & economic struggles (pp. 251–267). Palgrave Macmillan.

13.

Creech

(2021). Journalism education for the digital age: Promises, perils, and possibilities. Routledge.

14.

Cushion

(2015). News and politics: The rise of live and interpretive journalism. Routledge.

15.

Deuze

(2006). Global journalism education: A conceptual approach. Journalism Studies, 7(1), 19–34.

16.

Djokotoe

(2004). An issue-based journalism handbook. MISA Zambia.

17.

Fahmy

Abdulmajeed Attia

(2024). Egyptian journalists’ perceptions of digital journalism training effectiveness. SAGE Open, 14(1), 21582440241232756.

18.

Fanon

(1963/2004). The wretched of the earth. Grover.

19.

Gillmor

(2004). We the media: The rise of citizen journalist. National Civic Review, 93, 58–63.

20.

Gondwe

(2022). African journalists at crossroads: Examining the impact of China, US, and the UK’s short-journalism training programs offered to African journalists. Journalism Studies, 23(13), 1654–1668.

21.

Gondwe

Modile

(2024). Digital newspaper and journalism practices in Tanzania: What are journalists’ perspectives? African Journalism Studies, 44, 1–16.

22.

Hanitzsch

Hanusch

Ramaprasad

De Beer

(Eds.). (2019). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press.

23.

Hochheimer

J. L.

(2001). Journalism education in Africa: From critical pedagogical theory to meaning-based practice. Critical Arts, 15(1–2), 97–116.

24.

Jenkins

Graves

(2024). Do more with less: Minimizing competitive tensions in collaborative local journalism. Digital Journalism, 12(2), 101–120.

25.

Kvale

(2007). Doing interviews. The SAGE qualitative research kit. Sage.

26.

Mabweazara

H. M.

(2021). Towards reimagining the “digital divide”: Impediments and circumnavigation practices in the appropriation of the mobile phone by African journalists. Information, Communication & Society, 24(3), 344–364.

27.

Mabweazara

H. M.

Mare

(2021). Participatory journalism in Africa: Digital news engagement and user agency in the South. Routledge.

28.

Mabweazara

H. M.

Muneri

C. T.

Ndlovu

(2020). News “media capture,” relations of patronage and clientelist practices in sub-Saharan Africa: An interpretive qualitative analysis. Journalism Studies, 21(15), 2154–2175.

29.

Matthews

Onyemaobi

(2020). Precarious professionalism: Journalism and the fragility of professional practice in the Global South. Journalism Studies, 21(13), 1836–1851.

30.

Mbembe

(2015). Decolonizing knowledge and the question of the archive. https://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Achille%20Mbembe%20-%20Decolonizing%20Knowledge%20and%20the%20Question%20of%20the%20Archive.pdf

31.

Mbembe

(2019). Future knowledge and their implications for the decolonisation project. In Jansen

J. D.

(Ed.), Decolonisation in universities: The politics of knowledge (pp. 239–254). Wits University Press.

32.

Menkiti

I. A.

(2001). Normative instability as a source of Africa’s political disorder. In Kiros

(Ed.), Explorations in African political thought: Identity, community, ethics (pp.133–150). London: Routledge.

33.

Mensing

(2010). Rethinking [again] the future of journalism education. Journalism Studies, 11(4), 511–523.

34.

Mfumbusa

(2010). Tanzania’s journalism education at crossroads: Western models, local realities. In Josephi

(Ed.), Journalism education in countries with limited media freedom (pp. 155–172). Peter Lang Publishing.

35.

Mfumbusa

B. F.

(2008). Newsroom ethics in Africa: Quest for a normative framework. African Communication Research, 1(2), 139–158.

36.

Mhlambi

(2020). From rationality to relationality: Ubuntu as an ethical and human rights framework for artificial intelligence governance. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

37.

Moyo

Mare

Matsilele

(2020). Analytics-driven journalism: Editorial metrics and the reconfiguration of online news production practices in African newsrooms. In Moyo

Mare

Matsilele

(Eds.), Measurable journalism (pp. 104–120). Routledge.

38.

Moyo

(2022). Introduction: Journalism studies and the global south-theory, practice and pedagogy. Journalism Studies, 23(13), 1567–1577.

39.

Mpofu

Ndlovu-Gatsheni

S. J.

(Eds.). (2019). Rethinking and unthinking development: Perspectives on inequality and poverty in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Berghahn Books.

40.

Mpofu

Matsilele

(2024). Challenges and opportunities at decolonizing the curriculum: Narratives from selected Southern African journalism and media schools. In Mutsvairo

Bebawi

Borges-Rey

(Eds.), The Routledge companion to journalism in the global south (pp. 121–132). Routledge.

41.

Munoriyarwa

Chibuwe

(2022). Is this not colonization? Framing Sino-South African relations in South Africa’s mainstream press. Communicare: Journal for Communication Sciences in Southern Africa, 41(1), 11–24.

42.

Munoriyarwa

Chiumbu

Motsaathebe

(2023). Artificial intelligence practices in everyday news production: The case of South Africa’s mainstream newsrooms. Journalism Practice, 17(7), 1374–1392.

43.

Mutsvairo

Salgado

(2022). Is citizen journalism dead? An examination of recent developments in the field. Journalism, 23(2), 354–371.

44.

Newkirk

(2000). Within the veil: Black journalists, white media. New York University Press.

45.

Obijiofor

M’Balla-Ndi Oelgemoeller

(2023). Journalism education, research, and practice in Africa: Toward a transformative approach. International Communication Gazette, 85(6), 439–458.

46.

Ofori-Parku

S. S.

Botwe

(2020). “This is (not) journalism”: Corruption, subterfuge, and metajournalistic discourses on undercover journalism in Ghana. Journalism Studies, 21(3), 388–405.

47.

Ogongo Ogong’a. (2010). The challenges of Kenya’s journalism education. In B

Josephi

(Ed.), Journalism education in countries with limited media freedom (pp. 137–154). Peter Lang Publishing.

48.

Schiffrin

Behrman

(2011). Does training make a difference? Evaluating journalism training programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 66(4), 340–360.

49.

Skjerdal

T. S.

(2012). The three alternative journalisms of Africa. International Communication Gazette, 74(7), 636–654.

50.

Solkin

(2022). Journalism education in the 21st century: A thematic analysis of the research literature. Journalism, 23(2), 444–460.

51.

Tomaselli

K. G.

(2003). “Our culture” vs “foreign culture”: An essay on ontological and professional issues in African journalism. Gazette, 65(6), 427–441.

52.

Traber

(1989). African communication: Problems and prospects. Africa Media Review, 3(3), 86–97.

53.

Tsarwe

Gadzikwa

(2024). Becoming a journalist: Experiences of trainee journalists in Zimbabwe. African Journalism Studies, 44, 187–203.

54.

Waisbord

(2013). Reinventing professionalism: Journalism and news in global perspective. Polity Press.

55.

Waller

(2010). Digital play in the classroom: A twenty-first-century pedagogy? In Rogers

(Ed.), Rethinking play and pedagogy in early childhood education (pp. 147–159). Routledge.

56.

Wanda

J. F.

Chipanjilo

B. S.

Gondwe

Kerunga

(2021). Clickbait-style headlines and journalism credibility in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring audience perceptions. Journal of Media and Communication Studies, 13(2), 50–56.

57.

Wasserman

(2006). Globalized values & postcolonial responses: South African perspectives on normative media ethics. International Communication Gazette, 68(1), 71–91.

58.

Wasserman

(2010). Tabloid journalism in South Africa: True story! Indiana University Press.

59.

Wasserman

(2017). Professionalism and ethics: The need for a global perspective. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 19(4), 312–316.

60.

Wasserman

(2020). The ethics of engagement: Media, conflict, and democracy in Africa. Oxford University Press.

61.

Wa Thiong’o

(1986). The writer in a neocolonial state. The Black Scholar, 17(4), 2–10.

62.

Wa Thiong’o

. (1998). Decolonising the mind. Diogenes, 46(184), 101–104.

63.

White

R. A.

(2014). Keeping the public sphere(s) public. In Christians

Nordenstreng

(Eds.), Communication theories in a multicultural world (pp. ix, 325). Peter Lang.

64.

Wimmer

R. D.

Dominick

J. R.

(2013). Mass media research. Cengage Learning.

65.

Workneh

T. W.

(2018). Journalism education interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa: An examination of the Norwegian model in Ethiopia. African Journalism Studies, 39(2), 9–29.