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If you were given the chance to study at any university in the world, where
would you go? For Guy Berger, the answer was, without a doubt, Carolina.
Berger, a journalism professor at Rhodes University in South Africa, was
awarded one of 800 Fulbright Scholarships, which allows him a seven-month
research stay at Carolina. A recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship receives
funding from the U.S. Department of State to attend a university outside his or
her home country for the purpose of conducting advanced research or university
teaching.
Berger's research at the University focuses on information presented in his
scholarship-winning essay, "African Journalism Training in an Age of
Globalization and the Internet." While at Carolina, Berger is being hosted by
Richard Cole, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Berger chose to conduct his research at the University because it is an
all-around excellent school. Although Rhodes University is the most
well-established journalism school in South Africa, Carolina offers a more
technologically advanced atmosphere, Berger said.
"I think what's interesting coming here is seeing a school that's got a lot
of history, and it's for very high caliber people," he said. "And I think that
is partially a function of the leadership here.
"One thing that's interesting is that the school here is very diverse,"
Berger said. "It covers a lot of different things - public relations, sports
journalism, health journalism, multimedia." In South Africa, each facet of
journalism is taught at a different institution.
Coming to Carolina
Berger came to Carolina last October to begin his research on globalization
of journalism teaching from the vantage point of South Africa. He is examining
the media-democracy relationship and the challenge to journalism training posed
by New Media, such as the Internet, as well as how to raise the standards of
journalism training in South Africa.
"It used to be there were different concepts of journalism around the
world," Berger said. "Now, more and more, there's a dominant concept that
journalism should be this: It should be independent; it should be critical; it
should play a democratic role."
Although the United States seems to be the model for media in a democratic
society, Berger said the dominant view is that American journalism has become
more entertaining than informational and reporters have become commentators.
Because so much competition exists among United States media, reported
information lacks substance.
"A great deal of television punditry is often more about staging a drama of
polarized positions and celebrity comment than about informed journalistic
analysis," Berger said.
The ideal of journalism in Africa is more alive than in the United States,
Berger said. News focuses on facts, as opposed to entertainment value.
Democracy is still new to South Africa, but news can now be reported without
consequences to the reporter.
Berger knows first-hand how important a democratic society is to the media.
He was imprisoned twice for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa - once
for assimilating and distributing banned literature and once for producing
protest information about apartheid.
"I think when you come from that part of the world, you don't take things
for granted," Berger said. "You don't take freedom for granted; you don't take
democracy for granted; you don't take the role of the media for granted.
"Maybe in a hundred years that will change, but it's still new, and it's
really appreciated, and I really appreciate it," Berger said. "And people are
very lucky that's the environment they live in, that they have media freedom,"
Berger said.
South African democracy has also helped journalists report information
about apartheid that would have otherwise been censured. "A lot of journalism
has exposed human rights abuses amongst racist white farmers on the one hand,"
Berger said, "and corruption amongst members of the mainly black government on
the other. In this way, the media has stayed faithful to a role in the
interests of building democracy."
The pedagogy of new media
Berger is also comparing the uses of New Media, particularly the Internet,
in America to their uses in South Africa. "I'm trying to (assess) how does the
Internet relate to the world of journalism in a place like the United States,
and what does it mean for your teaching?" Berger said. "A lot of students are
going to be working either directly for Internet or for traditional media that
have Internet platforms. So (the Internet) really affects your training."
Journalism training should implement multi-media skills for New Media
journalists and teach ethical problem-solving skills, Berger said.
Although the Internet is available at Rhodes University, it is not
implemented into the teaching curriculum as it is in the United States, but it
is used to retrieve the latest news by anyone with a cellular phone. Cellular
phones are more widely used in South Africa than in the United States, Berger
said, and have become popular media sources. Through Wireless Application
Process (WAP), anyone with a cellular phone can access the most recent news
from the Internet, a fact that is one reason Berger is trying to assess ways to
implement Internet training into Rhodes' journalism classes.
The future of journalism training relies on more than just outside class
use of the Internet. Berger also hopes to implement accreditation systems in
South Africa by tracking graduates' use of journalism training. Although he has
only begun this aspect of his research, he hopes to find a method of tracking
students and journalists who have attended mid-career workshops and monitor how
effective their training has been on the student and the media.
In addition to his original research plan, Berger has also been researching
the role of race representation in United States media compared to
representation in South African media. Contrary to U.S. practices, the South
African majority is under-represented in the media, but South Africans are
trying to assimilate their racial groups so they can be represented as a whole,
not by racial divisions.
When Berger returns to South Africa this spring, he will take with him a
new basis for training journalists at Rhodes University, implementing new
journalism practices he learned while at Carolina. He will also be expanding
the use of New Media resources to improve communication among students,
professors and journalists. "With the Internet your knowledge isn't only at the
university," Berger said, "and teaching is not only done in the university, so
it's the whole idea that teaching journalism at the university is beginning to
change."
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