Major Choice And Occupation Imagination Of Journalism Students In The Context Of Journalism Crisis

Research on journalists is an important topic in the study of journalism.Research on journalists’ motivations for career choice,practice status,professional roles and career transitions has provided insights into the understanding of journalism.After the rise of the Internet,journalism crisis has become a strong discourse to describe journalism.This crisis is mainly manifested in the operational crisis of the journalism industry,the threat to the professional jurisdiction of journalism,and the reduction of professional prestige.When journalism crisis became a public discourse to describe the current state of journalism,it also greatly affected the career choices of practitioners,and in recent years,the departure and transition of journalism practitioners has become a topic of concern.If journalism students in colleges and universities are considered as potential journalism practitioners who will enter the journalism industry,why these potential practitioners choose journalism as their major,how they understand and imagine their journalism career,and how their journalism education affects their imagination of journalism and their career planning in the context of the general journalism crisis,these questions have become worthy of attention and research.In the context of the general journalism crisis,these questions have become issues worthy of attention and research.In this paper,we hope to explore these issues from the perspective of occupational sociology,using occupational systems theory.Professional sociology believes that the ideal profession has legitimate jurisdiction over its work,and academic knowledge provides the professional knowledge base for the operation of the professional system,which is an important part of maintaining the stability of professional jurisdiction.The key to the professionalization of a job also lies in the "production of producers" by professional education,and the consolidation of the social structure and status of a profession through the monopoly of income opportunities,professional prestige and job privileges.The current crisis in journalism is precisely manifested in the decline of professional income and prestige as well as the dilemma of professional jurisdiction,which,from the perspective of the professional system,is transmitted to the professional choice of college students and the professional training mode of colleges and universities through the changes in the professional skills and labor demand of the industry.Therefore,if journalism students are considered as potential practitioners who are about to enter the journalism industry,the study of journalism students also becomes an important window to examine the composition and stability of the journalism career system.Based on this,this paper attempts to explain the paradox of professional choice of journalism practitioners in the context of journalism crisis by analyzing their motives for choosing journalism majors,their imagination of journalism career,and their understanding of journalism professional education after a certain period of professional study and internship practice,and also hopes to use journalism students as a window to window to glimpse the impact of the overall situation of journalism crisis on the admission of journalism professionals in China and on the training of potential journalism workforce by journalism majors in colleges and universities.The overall goal of this paper is to understand the journalism career system,to gain a new understanding of the paradox between journalism training and industry demand and to attempt to explain this paradox.The significance and value of this paper is to provide a new perspective,new ideas,and new knowledge for the study of the journalism workforce by looking at the situation of professional students in the middle ground between journalism and industry.Through a survey and interviews with four classes of journalism students at a comprehensive research university in China,this study found that "journalistic ideals" were an important driver for students in choosing to enter the journalism profession,but the compromise of "no better choice" due to the limitation of high school entrance examination scores or "no better choice" was also an important factor affecting journalism students’ choice of profession.However,compromise due to the limitation of high school entrance examination scores or "no better choice" is also an important factor influencing journalism students’ choice of major.Students entering journalism majors hold multiple imaginations of the journalism profession,and existing social discourses describing the journalism profession,such as "propagator of the Party’s journalism","recorder of social facts",and "watchdog and enlightener of society",have been used to describe the profession.Journalism students’ professional imagination of journalism is reflected in the existing social discourses describing the profession,such as "the propagator of the Party’s journalism","the recorder of social facts",and "the supervisor and enlightener of society".Despite their criticism of journalism education in schools(e.g.,that "journalism is not learned"),students also insist that the professional diploma is a "brick in the wall" to enter the journalism profession,especially to work in the institutional media.Thus,the paradox of journalism students’ choice of major in the context of the journalism crisis can be better explained from the perspective of the career system,i.e.,the journalism major may not yet provide students with sufficient knowledge and skills to work in the media in the new Internet environment,but it is an "entry card" to enter the media,especially to work in the institutional media.This is why the current crisis in the journalism industry has not completely affected the choice of journalism majors in China,and why journalism majors have a more positive image of their studies and careers.This is the reason why the current journalism crisis has not completely affected the choice of journalism majors in China and the more positive imagination of journalism study and career.