Improvement of participating media outlets
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Description
Efforts to capture the impact of journalism training programmes have mainly focused on measuring the improvements in skills and knowledge on the level of individual participants. More convincing evidence of the impact of journalism training and its application to working practices can only be achieved by examination of the output of the media. Depending on the results, it might also be necessary to clarify the reasons why journalists were not able to put into practice what they had learned.
To date, studies to measure the impact of training were only undertaken in the field of news reporting. No examples could be found, where the impact of management training was explored beyond self-reported improvement of skills by the participants. This is also the case for training-of-trainers courses and every other field of specialised training of media personnel.
Indicators
Journalism training: Quality Criteria used by Spurk/Keel, based on normative approach of functions of media for democratic societies:
Information: •Diversity of topics •Diversity of actors in stories •Diversity of sources •Comprehensiveness of information
•Truthfulness and verification
Orientation: • Background information and analysis • Diversity of perspectives
Forum: • Diversity and balance of viewpoints • Diversity of sources • Diversity of opinions
Scrutiny: • Level of own journalistic inquiry
Management training:
Methods/Methodologies/Tools
Content analysis allows researchers to analyse media output systematically, objectively and reliably by measuring the content and format of text or broadcast material. Content analysis has also been used in recent years to assess the media before and after extensive training programmes, to interpret and attribute the stated effects of the programmes applied.
In-depth interviews / Trainee logs
In-depth follow-up interviews and trainee logs allow further understanding of the trainees’ views of the training, the challenges faced working as a journalist and the trainees’ experience of applying the skills and knowledge obtained through training in their day-to-day jobs.
Practitioners’ tips / Best practices
Examples
Using content analysis to measure the influence of media development interventions: Elections training for journalists in Yemen. BBC World Service Trust (2008)
This report examines the use of content analysis to measure the influence of training for journalists on media organisations’ output. The study included television, radio and newspaper content prior to and after elections training.
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/pdf/bbcwst_research_series_yemen.pdf
Spurk, Christoph: Planning and evaluation of journalism training: A baseline study on radio news in Zambia. (2007)
The presentation demonstrates the tool of content analysis for planning and evaluation of journalism training. Based on the normative functions of media in democratic societies Spurk outlines the corresponding quality criteria and applies them to the content analysis of the newscasts of different radio stations in Zambia.
http://www.cameco.org/files/measuring_change_1.pdf
(Web based) resources
- Training resources
- Discussion forums and specialised platforms
- Related web portals
- Organisations and institutions specialised in this area
- For further study:
Author(s)
A. Sofie Jannusch, CAMECO
Contributions:
