Making Ends (and Bytes) Meet The Challenges of Teaching Multimedia at an Urban, Underfunded University (3-U)

AbstractIn a time of dynamic changes in mass communication and the restructuring of communication programs, and in the face of shrinking education budgets, educators are being pushed to update their programs to include a new emphasis on multimedia production while sustaining traditional modes of mass communication. Through surveys (N = 121) and focus groups (N = 40) with students, this research explores how to update pedagogy to keep pace with the changes in industry. It is built around the experience of launching a multimedia class required for all students enrolled in a journalism and mass communication school at a large, urban, state-funded university.Keywordsmultimedia, digital, production, pedagogy, curricula, critical thinkingIn a time of dynamic changes in mass communication and the restructuring of communication programs at institutes of higher education, and in the face of shrinking budgets, communication educators are being pushed to update their programs and course offerings to include a new emphasis on multimedia production while sustaining traditional models of teaching mass communication. How do we update our pedagogy to keep pace with these changes while maintaining a focus on the fundamentals of good journalism, or the basic tenets of strategic communication? Drawing on the experience of launching a multimedia production class required for all students enrolled in a journalism and mass communication school at a large, urban, state-funded university, we explore best practices to combine technical skills with the foundations of engaged storytelling and critical thinking, both of which are fundamental to our teaching goals and our students' future success as communication professionals.Teaching multimedia presents an opportunity to address one of the ongoing arguments at the heart of mass communication pedagogy: how to find the proper balance between a strong foundation in critical thinking and analytical problem solving while acquiring the necessary skills demanded by a rapidly evolving marketplace. The crossplatform, engaged, and participatory nature of online media presents a new learning environment for students, one that requires a level of skills-based knowledge but at the same time demands that students have the ability to think independently and be problem solvers. As a result, the old argument of "we don't teach them how to type" begins to seem antiquated in this digital world.As professors at a large, urban, underfunded university (what we're referring to here as a "3-U"), we are using our experiences and those of our students to recognize the limitations students and institutions are facing in the current economic environment and, given these challenges, think about how we can most effectively prepare our students for careers in mass communication. While there have been incredible efforts by top communication schools (e.g., University of Missouri, Columbia, University of Southern California, University of California, Berkeley, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill) at revamping curricula to effectively adapt to evolving industries and audiences,1 these efforts have often been funded through large grant-making institutions and built on a strong financial base with institutional support. But what about the students enrolled at schools like ours, and others like it, with similar challenges? These schools are also producing future journalists and media professionals that will go on to serve audiences, consumers, and citizens. Where will they gain the critical thinking and technical skills necessary to compete? Multimedia pedagogy, defined here as not just technical instruction but a comprehensive teaching strategy that incorporates critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving for working in converged media environments, may hold some answers.Research QuestionsThis research was initiated to understand the challenges we would be facing as our school instituted multimedia courses across our majors. …