There could be no better time and place to host the second World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) than South Africa and the year 2010. The global media spotlight is still shining on South Africa while the Fifa soccer world cup vibe is still in the air. At the same time two journalism conferences, Highway Africa and WJEC happen at the same place parallel each other.
WJEC is a global gathering of journalism educators and trainers from the four corners of the world. This second edition, themed, Journalism education in an age of radical change, is a build up on the initial congress that was held at Singapore in 2007.
Grahamstown based Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies in South Africa will host this global event from Monday 5-7 July. Advocate Pansy Tlakula, a special rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa will deliver the opening keynote address.
Over 350 journalism trainers and educators from across the globe will attend this conference from diverse countries like India, Iraq, Moldovia and Mexico. Highway Africa, a 14-year-old African ICT journalism conference is also happening at the same time close by.
“It’s about building an international network where people know and trust each other, and actively interact around their common interest in journalism education”, said Professor Guy Berger, Rhodes Journalism and Media Studies School Head. This platform and incidental hosting of two journalism conferences at the same time creates a unique global networking environment for both the journalists and trainers. Ideas, discoveries, research and experiences will be shared.
Discussions will ensue and decisions will be reached as journalists would tend to agree that this kind of interaction was long overdue. The conference will also be available in Mandarin translations thanks to the sponsors Hanban, a Chinese cultural institute.
WJEC event traverses language and other boundaries, while still remaining within parameters of journalism education concerns. It’s a focused and object oriented occasion with enormous productive potential, added Berger.
The conference programme is composed of syndicates which are specialised discussion groups, panel discussions and research presentations. In the initial WJEC congress in Singapore a statement of principles of Journalism education was adopted. These principles will be revisited and amended if there is a need in this conference.
Some of the key thinkers in journalism education at the conference include:
• Dan Gilmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and author of We The Media. (USA)
• Mindy McAdams, University of Florida, author of blog Teaching Online Journalism. (USA)
• LI Liangrong, Fudan University, President of Chinese Communications Association.
• Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas, Austin, and president of Orbicom - the network of UNESCO chairs in communication. (USA)
• Kwame Karikari, Director of the Media Foundation of West Africa and prolific scholar on African media.
Panel discussions will run parallel each other on topics ranging from educating students for workplace and relations between traditional and non traditional journalism education providers in a changing environment. New media trainings for journalism teachers will be conducted thanks to our sponsors Absa, Telkom and Multichoice. Through the auspices of Unesco the conference will be streamed live on WJEC website at http://wjec.ru.ac.za/ as well as covered on radio and television by the conference media partners, SABC, Media 24 and Multichoice. Our celebrated South African Nobel Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu will make the closing note.
For any media related queries please call
Khaya Thonjeni
Tel : 046 603 7110
Fax : 046 603 7101
Email : K.thonjeni@ru.ac.za
http://wjec.ru.ac.za/
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