Call for Abstracts: World Journalism Education Congress

The World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC), to be held on August 8-10, 2025, in San Francisco, is calling for abstracts that explore future directions for journalism education.

The theme of the congress will be: “Is it time to reboot journalism education?”

The Congress provides a crucial discussion form on universal issues and interests related to journalism education today, supports and encourages the continuing evolution of journalism and journalism education around the globe.

Areas of Research

The WJEC is currently soliciting academic paper abstracts related to the wider issue of journalism education in uncertain times. These will be presented as refereed research papers at the forthcoming Perth conference.

Abstracts will be welcomed on a variety of topics related to mass communication. However, submitters are
encouraged to focus their entries on the broader conference theme: “Journalism in Uncertain Times.”

Potential themes can include, but are not limited to:

• Teaching journalism in the era of social media and social networks
• Journalism education for a 21st century society (e.g. the role of journalism, news and media literacy, news avoidance, civic journalism, solution journalism, constructive journalism, audience bias and negativity, cancel culture)
• Research-led journalism education
• Journalism education in diversity, equality and inclusivity
• Reporting on crisis: what is the role of journalism education in the area of reporting on crises, e.g. climate change, environmental reporting, conflict, health
• Journalism education and press freedom
• Journalism education and establishing trust in an era of fake news (fact checking, verification, misinformation, post-truth)
• Technological mutations and the future of journalistic practices: what to add, keep or drop
• “One journalism or many journalisms”? Connecting students with multiple communities: from local to
  international
• Journalism education, safety and trauma – teaching “trauma-aware journalism” for self and others
• Ethical challenges for teaching and undertaking new forms of journalism
• Journalism and resilience: preparing students to work in the profession
• Journalism education tackling issues of mental health in the classroom and the newsroom
• Trust in journalism: falling levels of trust in journalism present challenges around the role of news in democracies and politics, growing authoritarianism around the world and in holding power to account, how can journalism education address these issues?

Submission guidelines

WJEC invites interested presenters to submit abstracts only (minimum 500 words; maximum 800 words) by December 31, 2024. For more information, please click here.