Change of government: No change in the journalism curriculum?
THE journalism curricula in Malaysian public universities have generally been oriented to the dominant ideology. There has been little criticism against mainstream values and institutions except from a handful of academics, and even then, concentrating from one journalism school located in Minden, Pulau Pinang with its bent on critical social science.
I shall term it as “journalism curricula/curriculum and journalism schools” rather than “communication” or “media studies”.
The emphases have been, since the early 1970s, on technical competence, writing skills, and now multimedia skills rather than intellectual curiosity, and subtantive analysis. Since then, substance is much questionable. The sentiment amongst journalism academics in those schools are that the skills at media production — be they newspaper, radio, television or online — are paramount to the success of the journalistic enterprise.
I made a paradoxical statement when I began teaching journalism (and communication and social science subjects) in a journalism school more than three decades ago — that I would not recruit journalism graduates (at least from the university that I taught, and the few journalism schools in Malaysia in the 1980s and 1990s) if I were a newspaper/media editor. I saw the problem and had relentlessly attempted to reform the journalism curriculum during the first 20 years of my academic life. I had also suggested that the journalism curriculum move out of the Communication School. Territoriality prevailed — a trait among academics having the effect of stifling innovation and the production of new knowledge. I moved out.
Post-May 9, 2018. The climate of expression appears to shift. The new government made some pronouncements to allow for freedom of the press and the media. Relevant laws are “promised” to be amended or repealed. A selfregulatory mechanism for journalistic practice took a new lease on life. If previously, members of the profession held a lukewarm attitude, with some saying a media/press council will not exist “in our lifetime”.
Some journalists and editors, who were involved in discussions for a press council almost 20 years ago have left us, leaving behind those who now felt the need to self-regulate “freedom”, ushered by the new ideology and pressured by reform-minded non-govermental organisations and civil societies. I did not see journalism educators from public universities at the two-day national consultation on the formation of a national media council held in Kuala Lumpur recently. What has not changed? Are the journalism schools in their old mode of thought and teaching?
The beginning of the “era in the journalism and media landscape” in Malaysia is almost one year old now. Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself assured the public and the
profession that they can criticise him: “I don’t agree with the action taken against those who criticise me. I have informed the police about this” (May19, 2018). The Communications and Multimedia Minister affirmed his commitment to free speech (NST, March 12, 2019). It definitely takes time to restructure and reform the journalism curricula and reorient the intellectual mood on campuses and lecture halls. A radically different approach and emphasis on the curricula is needed. Mainstream and alternative journalism and media have to be redefined.
Apart from writing, editing, production and multimedia skills, a sociological approach must be instituted. A theoretical and contextual premise toward journalism and society must be structured in the major components. In fact, the journalism curriculum should partake and assume the role of a general curriculum for the university. Students and journalism students must be obliged to be instructed in philosophy, science history, dialectical thinking and scientific thinking.
The whole gamut of courses in the social sciences must be instituted with some as a set of core subject, and the rest as electives. And of course there is literature. Journalism students must see themselves as storytellers par excellence. Fiction-writing and the essay must be subjects on their own.
I have emphasised much earlier when I suggested the separation of journalism from the Communication School in 2002, that journalism as an enterprise is much closer to the humanities and social sciences than to the study of communication. And perhaps, anthropology, science and fine arts graduates make better journalists. It is the methodology of thinking, a mode of seeing that has been held in abeyance in the journalism schools since their genesis almost five decades ago.
Journalism is a vocation, loosely a profession. But the teaching and curricula of journalism as vocational training must quickly — and this is long overdue — be abandoned for a more intensely sociological, historical and philosophical approach. The resistance toward theory only negates the workings of journalism and its necessary engagement with society and the human condition. Engaging in different levels of discourse and being literate in their dynamics is the forte of the present and the future.
The journalism curricula must revisit the meanings of “neutrality”, “impartiality” and “objectivity”. The pedagogy must be open and honest on journalism’s roles and functions — either as neutral transmitter, interpreter or active participant in national and international affairs. Second guessing the powers-that-be on what to express should not be the order of the day any more. But like knowledge and its production, civility and decorum must be the outcome of good journalism education. Fear and the closed universe of discourse subconsciously dominating thought and ideas must break into new meaning for the future of journalism students, journalists and Malaysian society.
Do we have to wait for the Minister of Education to continue reminding us on university autonomy? It is ironic. That autonomy has not resonated in the journalism curricula.
Second guessing the powers-that-be on what to express should not be the order of the day any more.