percent like to have it every semester. The students’ mixed responses to the public courses and other knowledge courses, and their preference over the practical courses show they are more realistic and want to learn something useful for their future careers. Their lack of interest in the knowledge and the so-called theoretical courses may be related to the teaching methods and the use of textbooks in the five journalism programs in Shanghai. 2. Mixed Responses to Teaching Methods and Textbooks The student’s overall responses to the teaching methods in the five journalism programs in Shanghai tend to be more negative than positive. Forty one percent of the surveyed students hold that the overall teaching methods are not very effective and outdated while another 26 percent regards the teaching methods acceptable though not effective and 27 percent think some courses are good and some not so good. Only six percent agree that the teaching methods are very effective and enlightening to them. However, the student’s responses are quite different from the responses from the faculty members, 58 percent of whom think the teaching methods are effective. Twenty one percent of them admit that some courses are effective and some are not while only 20 percent of them consider that the teaching methods are not effective and are not related to the media practice. The difference between the students and faculty members may result from the fact that most journalism programs in Shanghai have not yet established an evaluation system for all the courses. Even if an evaluation system is set up, it may not very effective. As a result, there lacks a good channel for instructors to communicate effectively with the students. The above results of the survey also calls for the establishment of an effective evaluation system in the journalism programs in Shanghai, and maybe in all the journalism programs across China. The difference of the survey results among teachers and students also exit in their responses to the textbooks used in the five journalism programs in Shanghai. Only 28 percent of the students surveyed agree the textbooks used are acceptable though a bit outdated, however, 68 percent of the faculty argue that this is the case. On the contrary, 67 percent of students as opposed to 27 percent of faculty hold that textbooks are very much outdated and need instant improvement. However, five percent of students and teachers agree that the textbooks are very fresh and attractive. 3. Concerted Responses: Lack of Teaching Resources and Investment The students and faculty members hold similar opinions over the availability of teaching resources and investment in their respective journalism programs. Seventy percent of students and 61 percent of faculty agree that the teaching staff are not sufficient while only 21 percent students and 32 percent faculty agree that the teaching staff are basically sufficient. The lack of sufficient teaching staff may be related with the fact that 53 percent of the faculty surveyed are dissatisfied with their monthly incomes in that only 11 percent of them earn as high as over 2,000 yuan (roughly 240 US dollars) per month while the majority of them (84 %) earn 1,000 to 2,000 yuan (120 to 240 US dollars) per month and the remaining five percent earn less than 1,000 yuan (120 US dollars) per month. This may also explain the fact that both the students (67%) and faculty (79%) have listed the lack of investment as the biggest problem in the current journalism education in Shanghai. Although 55 percent of students and 42 percent of faculty list the outdated teaching method as the second biggest problem, they basically agree that teaching methods can be improved if sufficient financial input is guaranteed. 6. Concluding Remarks This paper has attempted to understand, from the localization perspective, the development of the journalism education in China since its birth some past 70-odd years before when it was modeled after the American system. To a degree, the writer holds that the journalism education in China really could not have developed to the present status without the efforts to localize (modified and adapted) to the Chinese practice. The localization is particularly obvious in Shanghai since the 1980s when Shanghai witnessed the establishment of four more journalism programs, with different approaches to run the journalism programs such as international journalism program and sport journalism program, which have proved to be successful so far in that it is an good attempt to make journalism education more Chinesenized and more adaptive to the Chinese society. Of course, during the process of localization, problems are inevitable. But problems are in fact the beginning of further localization and improvement, which can further adapt to the current practice and further develop based on the previous progresses. Therefore, it is very important to recognize the problems at this present stage, with an effort to solve the problems. Some problems really can not be solved overnight. For instance, the increase of financial input into journalism education may take a long time to come. Besides, it may also be related with the availability of sufficient and qualified teaching staff. However, some of problems can be dealt with now. Evaluation system for courses are that difficult to establish. In fact, some journalism programs have already started to evaluate courses among students and only need to perfect the systems. While emphasizing the localization process of the development of the journalism education in China, the writer still considers it extremely important to continue to learn from the journalism education systems of foreign countries, the U.S.A in particular. From the discussions of the above problems in Shanghai, it may be clear enough that journalism education in the five journalism programs surveyed at least is yet to provide substantial guidelines for media practice in Chi 上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 下一页
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