Abstract:

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) along with the progress of internet during the last decades, have had significant impact on the journalistic field (Veglis, 2009). Changing technology influences journalism in several broad areas. However, journalism profession has always been considered to be closely related to technology (Pavlik, 2010). Nowadays, the journalist is expected to have the ability to exploit a variety of tools and services in order to cope successfully with the work demands (Veglis and Pomportsis, 2014).

While traditional work skills remain essential elements of the journalistic education, the challenge is to combine these with the needs of the new digital information age. Journalism graduates of today are not only expected to be skilled in writing, editing and broadcasting but they should also be able to create, collaborate, edit, share and publish content using web and new technologies (Sidiropoulos and Veglis, 2014). Undeniably, skills that are taught need to be adapted to fulfill the educational needs of the future media professionals and the requirements of a changing job environment. In education process, courses need to be adapted to learners' specific needs (Muijs and Reynolds, 2010). Also, feedback from students is extremely essential and can serve multiple purposes (McDonald, 2004). Universities tend to collect feedback from students to improve their courses and tutorship.

The present study focuses on the general and practical knowledge of the 1st year undergraduate students in the School of Journalism & Mass Media Communication in Greece regarding ICTs. More precisely, the sample of this long time study includes the 1st year students of the years 2003 – 2014. The objective of this study was to assess the students’ awareness on ICTs and then discover the progress of their knowledge and skills during all these years. The useful results contribute in the adaptation of the courses in their training needs as future journalists as their educational background is intimately related to the structure and content of curriculum. Finally, through students' opinion the paper discusses the necessity of ICTs in the journalism education as well as in journalism profession and work processes.

References:
[1] McDonald, J., 2004, Collecting and Using Mid-semester Feedback (ed T. Holmes), Teaching Support Services, University of Guelph, available at https://www.uoguelph.ca/tss/id/newfac/MidsemPckg.pdf
[2] Muijs, D. and Reynolds, D., 2010, Effective Teaching: Evidence and Practice, London: SAGE Publications Ltd
[3] Pavlik, J., 2000, The Impact of Technology on Journalism, Journalism Studies, 1(2), p. 229–237.
[4] Sidiropoulos, S. and Veglis, A., 2014, Computer Supported Collaborative Work skills for future journalists, published in 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI), Seville, Spain.
[5] Veglis, A., 2009, Cross Media Communication in newspaper organizations, in Poulymerakou, A., Pouloudi, N., Pramatari, K. (eds) 4th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, Athens, Greece.
[6] Veglis, A. and Pomportsis, A., 2014, Journalists in the age of ICTs: Work demands and Educational needs, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 69 (1), p.61-75.

Keywords:

ICT, skills, journalism, students, technology.