Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
Service Learning in Journalism & Mass Communication
By Emily T. Metzgar
AEJMC Standing Committee
on Teaching
Indiana University
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, March 2020 issue)
Of the fifteen institutions included in Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey in 2019, only Congress ranked lower (15th) than television news (14th). Newspapers didn’t fare much better (12th), although they did rank one step above big business (13th). The bottom line? Americans just don’t hold contemporary media in very high regard.
No doubt the contemporary political environment contributes to the media’s ranking here, but these institutions have been in the poll’s basement for years as public concern about media credibility, accountability, and objectivity has settled in. Methinks there’s more going on here. What about public perceptions of journalists’ empathy (or lack thereof)? Could that be a contributing factor to the profession’s decline in the public’s estimation?
Consider a video that made the rounds in late January. CNN anchor Don Lemon was hosting an on-air discussion during which he laughed repeatedly while a guest mocked the supposed ignorance of conservative voters. Making fun of half the American electorate probably isn’t a winning strategy for regaining the public’s confidence or reclaiming lost market share. But what does it suggest about the state of journalism in the United States?
It suggests a growing chasm between the professionals who produce the news and the audiences that professional journalists purport to serve. It suggests that we, as instructors in journalism and mass communication, must ensure that students don’t leave our classrooms without installation and testing of a “sensitivity chip.” And the best way to do this is to put students into contact with people, environments, and situations to which they might not otherwise be exposed.
This is not a call for political indoctrination. It’s a call for teaching our students how to develop empathy for people who are unlike them. It’s a call for getting our students out of the classroom and into the communities where they live and study. It’s a call for the infusion of more service-learning opportunities into our classes.
When Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, the storm’s destruction laid bare the gaps between the “haves” and “have nots” in the city. When Tulane University reopened after dealing with its own flood damage, it decreed that all its students – indisputably among the “haves” — would thereafter perform service in the community as a requirement for graduation. Our own institutions may not have similar requirements, but we can – and I believe we should — build concern for and interaction with our communities into our classes. Journalism and mass communication courses are perhaps better suited than most for application of student skills in the service of community organizations and in response to community needs. We should exploit that advantage — for our students and for ourselves.
How do I make the leap from taking a swipe at a thoughtless segment on a major cable news network to calling for students to storm our communities with service on offer? Here’s the logic: First, if “information is the currency of democracy” then teaching future journalists and communication professionals to learn about and be engaged in their communities can be an inherently political – and hopefully empathy-inducing — act. Second, we all understand the role of framing in the media and we know that the way a story is told not only allocates blame for problems, it limits the range of possible solutions. If we don’t ask students to leave their comfort zones they may not otherwise encounter people different from themselves and may not recognize opportunities to tell stories in new ways. Dearth of exposure is not a recipe for thoughtful reporting or empathy promotion.
Finally, as future journalists and media professionals, our students will bear the burden of helping to restore the professions’ reputation among the American public. Beyond their college careers our students will increasingly be expected to play roles described by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel as investigators, witnesses, role models, empowerers [sic], and facilitators of public debate. Without connections to or curiosity about their communities, our students will be ill-equipped to serve in many of these roles. And a certain degree of empathy is required to perform well in each.
How to teach empathy? Service-learning is an excellent place to start.
Emily T. Metzgar is an associate professor in The Media School @ Indiana University where she also serves as the School’s director for undergraduate studies. She is a member of AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Teaching.
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