WJEC Colleagues,
Summary of WJEC Planning Meeting
Chicago, Illinois
August 9, 2012
A group of WJEC delegates and interested parties met in Chicago at the AEJMC convention to discuss plans for WJEC3 in Mechelen, Belgium (July 3-5, 2012). A possible overarching theme for the conference was “Education for sustainable journalism worldwide: opportunities and challenges.”
Delegates attending were: Heather Birks (BEA), Rhonda Breit (JEA), Chris Frost (AJE), Wayne Wanta (AEJMC), Ran Wei (CCA), Fassy Yusuf (NJA). Others attending were Rosenthal Alves, Fackson Banda, Joe Foote, Robyn Goodman, Jyotika Ramaprasad, Charles C. Self, Bill Silcock, and Elanie Steyn.
Foote summarized the planning document presented by the Mechelen planning committee. This document included a general schedule of events and a budget. Attendees took note that the International Communication Association (ICA) would be meeting in London in mid-June, with the International Association for Mass Communication Research (IAMCR) meeting in Dublin in late June and WJEC3 meeting in early July. The group discussed whether the proximity of these two meetings would help or hurt WJEC3 attendance. The group then discussed specific elements of the congress.
Foote reported that he had made a brief site visit to Mechelen. He described the two facilities available for the congress: convention center in the heart of the city and a nearby university campus.
The Lamot Convention Center has excellent large facilities for panels, but only a limited number of small rooms. The university, which is a 15-minute walk from the Lamot Center and the major hotels, has a variety of smaller and larger spaces. The conference program will be held at the Lamot Center on days one and three and the university facilities on day two. Day three’s program may have to be split between the two venues if there is a need for additional smaller sessions.
A new direct train service to begin this year will connect Mechelen with the Brussels airport, providing an easy transfer for conference delegates. There also is an existing regular train service between Mechelen and Brussels. The journey time by train is about 25 minutes.
Paper Competition
Elanie Steyn led a discussion on the WJEC3 paper competition. The planning group recommended a paper competition similar to the one followed for WJEC2. The paper abstract submission deadline will be December 1, 2012 and scholars will be required to submit abstracts between 500 and 800 words, with clear outline of research focus and rationale, research objectives, research methodology, results and discussion/conclusions. Submitters should also include a list of references (additional to the 500-800-word count of the abstract itself). Steyn will oversee the competition and recruit a panel of international judges by collaborating with the AEJMC’s International Communication Division (ICD) and WJEC partner organizations’ members.
The conference organizers expect that WJEC3 will draw about 400 delegates. If this is the case, and organizers receive a similar number of papers, Steyn suggested that conference organizers might have to dedicate one research slot on the program to a refereed scholar-to-scholar session. There was considerable discussion about the positive and negative aspects of this. Scheduling 20 simultaneous research sessions would dilute the audience for each session significantly. In addition, including a paper in a scholar-to-scholar session might be viewed as a lower-ranked presentation that would make it more difficult for delegates to get funding. The group deferred further discussion until after the paper deadline when the organizers know exactly how many abstracts they receive.
Heather Birks of the Broadcast Education Association recommended that an additional competition and program session be held during which delegates can present great teaching ideas. Following the Ignite presentation model, a selected number of presentations would be held in a single session in which presenters have five minutes to make a visual presentation of their teaching idea. BEA offered to take ownership of the submission and review process and the session on the program. The format would showcase approximately 10 teaching ideas from the competition. These ideas will also be available on the conference website for future reference. If a syndicate is attached to this panel, discussions on these best practices could continue.
Panels/Syndicates
Foote suggested that panel sessions for WJEC3 should focus on six major themes that are also mirrored during the syndicate sessions. Other than was the case with WJEC2, this format would follow an invited panel approach through which one volunteer would take responsibility for organizing each panel and invite experts on the topic to present during the allocated panel session.
He presented a process through which WJEC member organizations would vote on and select four panel topics, leaving two panel slots for the host organization to fill with panel topics of their choice. Selecting topics for the panels will go through the following process:
The group did not discuss how plenaries would be constructed, but there was a suggestion for two broad umbrella topics, namely “Education for Journalism Sustainability” that would focus on social/cultural, economic, technological and political issues journalism educators should cover in order to prepare students for a sustainable media future. In addition, the topic of “Journalism education paradigms for different cultures and regions” was suggested for a second plenary.
Under this approach, the selected panel topics would also form the basis for a strand of syndicate topics. The organizers, under the leadership of Robyn Goodman, will compile individual syndicate sections (one on each of the selected panel topics) of no more than 15 people each. To meet demand and/or to provide sessions in a language other than English, breakout groups on the same syndicate topics could be added to and mirror the core syndicate group. All groups would meet during the first and second day of the congress as they did in Grahamstown. On the third day, all small groups on a particular topic would come together and discuss the topic further, compare discussions and find differences and similarities among the different groups. This will result in a one-page summary of the most salient issues related to the specific syndicate topic. These talking points will be made available to all delegates via the conference website.
Given that there could be 25 small group syndicates running simultaneously, the focus on fewer topics would simplify the process and provide greater cohesiveness for the congress. Success, however, would depend on the quality of the topics selected for the panels and the syndicates. The model could be adjusted to have a limited number of specialized syndicates that do not conform to the major themes of the congress.
Brainstorming among members who attended the planning meeting produced the following set of potential panel topics:
– – Alternative delivery of journalism skills and concepts – lifelong learning, online, hybrid teaching models;
– – Media and information literacy;
– – Social media trends and crowd-sourcing;
– – Investigative journalism/data journalism;
– – Internationalization and curriculum development;
– – Research on journalism education;
– – Industry-academic relationship;
– – Administration of journalism education globally; and
– – Teaching for empowerment – diversity, challenge.
Congress Promotion/Fundraising
Members expressed considerable interest in promoting the conference, the panel ideas and the call for papers. To achieve this, we attach a copy of the call for papers for member organizations to post on their websites and promote among their members through other mechanisms they have in place.
Members also discussed fundraising for the congress. Because a member of the Mechelen planning committee did not attend the meeting, we could not provide information on that issue. Fackson Banda suggested that UNESCO could provide a letter supporting WJEC3. This could help legitimize the congress among potential funders. Members also suggested approaching Google in London for support.
An attempt was made to reach Anna McCane by telephone in the U.K., but there were technical difficulties with making the connection.
We will ask the Mechelin organizers to provide quarterly updates that can be circulated to the Council.
Blog de Octavio Islas 