On Teaching of Bilingual Journalism Education in China

Abstract Bilingual journalism education (known as International Journalism Education) in China aims to train journalism professionals who can work in both English and Chinese media organizations. Having developed rapidly in the past decade, bilingual journalism education (BJE) programs are in a unique journalism education position in China by combining English-style journalistic practice and concepts with English learning. This paper first provides a review of the development of BJE in China, then explores the advantages and disadvantages of the BJE teaching model in China and offers the results of a case study of the BJE program at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), with focused discussions on students’ job orientation and overall course arrangement of the school’s BJE program. The paper also provides an analysis of the challenges that BJE programs face in China. In the end, an assessment is made of BJE development trends in China. In the past decade, bilingual journalism education in China (known as International Journalism Education in China) has developed rapidly. The program, aimed at training future reporters and editors who command both English-language and journalistic skills and are able to work in both Chinese and English media institutions at home and abroad, enjoys a unique position in the contemporary journalism education in China. This paper first provides a review of the development of BJE in China, then explores the advantages and disadvantages of the existing BJE teaching model of in China by referring to a case study of a BJE program at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), one of the pioneer universities in China in BJE since the 1980s, with focused discussions on students’ job orientation and overall course arrangement of its BJE program. Based on a case study, this paper also offers an analysis of the challenges BJE faces in China. Finally, an assessment is presented about the future trends of BJE in China in a Chinese environment. Development of Bilingual Journalism Education (BJE) in China BJE in China can be traced to the 1920s when Yanching University (now Beijing University) in Beijing, Fudan University and St. John’s University in Shanghai started U.S..-style journalism programs in which most courses were presented in English. After 1949, BJE was terminated as universities in China abandoned the American journalism model and followed the Soviet model. In fact, BJE was not resumed in China until the early 1980s when China’s Academy of Social Science first started a graduate bilingual journalism program focusing on English news writing and editing and the Beijing Broadcasting Institute began a bilingual journalism program for undergraduates in its English Department. However, it was only after 1983 that the BJE boom began in China when five more universities started bilingual journalism programs. The BJE programs (most of them known as International Journalism Programs) were initiated as dual-bachelor-degree programs, in which students received bachelor degrees as English majors and also BA degrees in international journalism after three years of extensive western-style journalistic training. Most English-language journalistic training was provided by journalism professors and media practitioners (known as foreign experts) from the United States, Great Britain and Australia, who were either funded by such non-profit organizations as the Fulbright Foundation and the Ford Foundation or employed by Chinese universities. China’s English-language media institutions such as Xinhua News Agency, CCTV, China Daily and Radio China International also sent reporters and editors to these campuses, to recruit more qualified future staff memebers. In 1983 the five programs, together with the one at Beijing Broadcasting Institute, enrolled an estimated 176 BJE students. As a result, BJE was hailed as a dramatic reform in the history of journalism education in China at the time. For the next ten years, with the withdrawal of financial support from Chinese government and media institutions, most BJE programs in China stopped the practice of enrolling dual BA students and started to recruit undergraduate and graduate students. In the past five years, more universities have started or expanded their BJE programs. Guangdong University of Foreign Studies started a BJE program in 1999 and Shangtou University in 2001. Beijing University expanded the program in their newly found School of Journalism and Communication. Other universities (such as Wuhan and Tsinghua ) are trying to include more English journalism courses in their curricula even though they do not have BJE programs. Reasons for China to Promote BJE The reasons for China to initiate and promote BJE in the past 20 years are multifold. First, it is a result of the English dominance in the area of international communication. As English serves as a kind of “international language” in the current global communication, it is natural for China, a country that strives for a better national image in the international arena, to train through BJE its own reporters and editors who can work in both English and Chinese. Second, as China’s economy continues to boom at a rate of about 10%, the media industry (including English and Chinese media) has become the fourth most profitable industry in China, with more than 50 newspaper chains and radio and TV groups. The Internet media are also developing rapidly. The 13th Annual Report of CNNIC on January 15, 2004 shows that as of December 31, 2003, total number of netizens in China is 795 million, the second largest number in the world. The fast development of China’s media industry surely calls for more international (namely BJE) reporting and editing staff members. Three specific factors are contributing to the rapid development of BJE and the increasing demand for bilingual journalists and editors in China: (1) More and more media institutions in China are becoming bilingual (English and Chinese), even multilingual. Not only do English-language media like CCTV-9, China Daily and Shanghai Daily recruit BJE graduates, but Chinese-language media organizations are also willing to enroll bilingual journalistic staff members, who can directly interview English speaking people inside and outside China. Liu Hong, an editor-in-chief of Jobweek, a newly founded weekly newspaper in Shanghai, found that it is hard to attract BJE graduates to her newspaper as her publication is not big enough and the salary from other media organizations is more competitive. Besides, BJE students who did their internships at different newspaper agencies found that they were given more opportunities in their jobs simply because they have the ability to use the English language along with their basic journalistic skills. (2) More Chinese universities have started journalism programs in the past decade. In 1992, China only had 52 schools of journalism and 77 journalism departments. Ten years later, in 2002, those numbers jumped to 96 and 232, respectively. From 2002 to 2003, the number of journalism programs has reached 323, an increase of 91 journalism programs in just one year. To enhance competitiveness for their journalism graduates in the job market, journalism programs in different universities are striving to develop a distinction for their programs and they have found BJE to be a good option. (3) Media institutions and professionals in China are eager to learn from the Western journalistic practices to enhance their international influence. For example, Southern Weekly (Nanfang Zhoumo), a popular weekly newspaper in China, advocates publicly that it is following the model of the New York Times. The newly founded School of Journalism at Tsinghua University is trying to enhance its influence by importing a series of original English textbooks on journalism and communication. BJE has surely catered to all the needs. Case Study of BJE To have a better understanding of the BJE teaching model in China, particularly its development in the past 20 years, this paper has selected the BJE Undergraduate Program at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) for a case study. Three reasons are cited to have selected the BJE Undergraduate Program at SISU for the case study. First, SISU is one of the pioneers in starting its BJE program and has enjoyed a good reputation in the area throughout the country; second, despite its changes from dual BA degree holders to undergraduates as well as graduates in the past 20 years, SISU has continuously run its BJE program and kept its sequential focus on international journalism ever since its start in 1983; finally, SISU, which started as a foreign-language school, can best demonstrate and also represent the existing BJE teaching model in China because language is a key element in understanding the BJE model in China. The case study of the BJE Undergraduate Program at SISU in this paper is going to focus on the BJE students’ first job orientation and overall course arrangement (curriculum), because job orientation can reflect its competitiveness and curriculum can demonstrate it uniqueness. Corresponding to the above reasons for China to promote BJE programs, Table One has confirmed the good job prospects for BJE students at SISU from 2001-2003. In the past three years, half of the BJE students at SISU can find jobs in large influential media organizations in China at the national and regional levels, such as Xinhua News Agency, Jiefang Daily, CCTV and Shanghai Television Station, instead of small-scale media at the community level. This explains the purpose of their BJE training, as large and influential media tend to use more of their English skills while small-size media do not need their English skills as they only focus on local Chinese communities. Table One: BJE Students’ First Jobs at SISU (2001-2003, all in %) Students’ First Jobs 2001ourses (in English, 22 credits, 13.33% and in Chinese, 10 credits, 6.06%) and elective journalism courses (also in English, 14 credits, 7.88% and in Chinese, 13 credits, 8.48%), for a total of 165 credits in a BJE student’s four-year study. Except for the general courses, which are all conducted in Chinese and are required for all the Chinese students, regardless of their majors, the other three sections of courses at the BJE program of SISU consist of English courses or journalism courses conducted in English, accounting for 53% with a total of 88 credits if added together. Table Two: Curriculum of the BJE Program at SISU Course Arrangement Creditson for a long time to become a qualified reporter. (4) Lack of Updated Teaching Materials and Resources. Teaching materials for BJE always have to be updated for effective teaching, however, most BJE programs in China lack effective access to update their teaching materials from English-speaking countries. Students could hardly afford to buy textbooks and new textbooks are often not available. Moreover, few English periodicals, newspapers and academic journals are available on most Chinese campuses. Therefore, BJE professors are often restrained from finding latest materials for their teaching and research, which hinders their teaching quality and their research activities. Trends of BJE in China Based upon the above discussion and analysis, the following assessment is made about the development trends of BJE in China: (1) BJE will continue to occupy a unique position in journalism education in China. To a degree, it can become more prosperous when China is becoming more international in this era of globalization. (2) BJE programs in China will always have to balance between English-learning and journalistic studies. On one hand, language can be an advantage for journalism students, but it can also interfere with their journalistic studies. Therefore, a good balance between the two must be reached in successful BJE programs. (3) BJE programs will continue to be located only in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which are international and where English is also more popular. (4) Most BJE programs in China will be combining BA and MA programs for effective use of teaching and research resources and for BJE students to find better jobs. (5) More overseas Chinese professors will be joining BJE programs in China, which will elevate the teaching quality of BJE, though slowly. And more cooperation is expected between BJE programs in China and foreign and Chinese media organizations as the media industry continues to boom. (6) While keeping their focus on the teaching of BJE, most BJE programs will turn to emphasize the academic research at international and domestic levels. Notes 1. Jianxin Li, History of Journalism education in China (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 2003), 56. 2. Ganlin Ding, “How to Set the Aim and Curriculum of University Journalism Training,” Journalism University, 54 (winter 1997): 70-71. 3. Kai Zhang, “Qualities of Chinese International Journalism Professionals and the Training Model,” in International Journalism and Intercultural Communication, ed. Guofen Cai and Qinyuan XU ( Beijing: Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press, 2003), 58. 4. Two universities were in Beijing: Beijing University and Beijing Foreign Studies University; two in Shanghai: Fudan University and Shanghai International Studies University; one in Guangzhou, Jinan University. 5. Ke Guo, “On International Journalism Education at Shanghai International Studies University,” in Essays on China’s Journalism Education, ed. China’s Journalism Education Association (Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2001), 186. 6. Li, History of Journalism Education, 236. 7. Shijie Guan, “A Review of International Communication Education, ” in Essays on China’s Journalism Education, ed. China’s Journalism Education Association (Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2001), 168. 8. Yanpei Zeng, “The Best Time in the History of New China,” Xinhua Digest, December 2002, 40-46. 9. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the national network information center of China, was founded as a non-profit organization on June 3rd 1997. CNNIC takes orders from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) to conduct daily business, while it was administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences takes the responsibility of running and administrating CNNIC. 10. Interview with LIU Hong in January 2004, editor-in-chief of Jobweek, a weekly newspaper published in Shanghai. In Shanghai, there are two competing newspaper groups: Jiefang Group and Wenxin Group. 11. Interview with students at Shanghai international Studies University in summer 2003, when they had just finished their four-month internship. 12. Li, History of Journalism Education in China, 260. 13. These are the figures provided in the Newsletter of China’s Journalism Education Association, No 17, September 2003. 14. The original figures were provided by Yao Fuming, Student Advisor of College of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai International Studies University in January 2004. 15. Interview with Anthony Lawrance, Managing Editor of South China Morning Post, in January 2004. 16. Teaching Programs of Shanghai International Studies University, June 2003, 36-38. 17. Interview with Prof. ZHANG Jian, Vice Dean at College of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai International Studies University, on December 28, 2003. 18. James Scotton was a Fulbright professor from Marquette University in the United States. He co-taught with GUO Ke, the coauthor of the paper, English News Writing, Feature Writing and International Communication at Shanghai International Studies University from Sep. 2001 to Sep. 2002. 19. Interview with ZHANG Ciyun in Dec. 2003, editor-in-chief of Shanghai Daily, an English language newspaper in Shanghai.