Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
1998
Publication Source
Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics
Volume
3
Issue
1
Start Page
118
Last Page
121
DOI
10.1177/1081180X98003001010
Abstract
The academic study of journalism resembles in many ways a failed adoption. Journalism study has no certain home, nurturing forces split by divisiveness and territoriality, and birth, foster, and adoptive parents at such cross-purposes that they cannot understand the child at the core of their attentions. Journalism is too important not to be understood by everyone, and universities need to play a role in helping to explain how it works. Yet the counterproductive actions of three agents—journalism professionals, academics who study journalism, and academics who care little for the study of journalism—are pushing the study of journalism into crisis mode. Meanwhile, as journalism itself continues to grow in the shadow of tensions about its appropriate placement in the academy, it begins to resemble a child whose inexplicable behavior is accountable only to itself.
Copyright/Permission Statement
The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol 3/No 1, 1998, © SAGE Publications, Inc., 1998, by SAGE Publications, Inc. at the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics page: http://hij.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/
Recommended Citation
Zelizer, B. (1998). The Failed Adoption of Journalism Study. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 3 (1), 118-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X98003001010
Date Posted: 15 March 2013
This document has been peer reviewed.