Online journalism meets the university: ideas for teaching and research

Abstract

During the last decade, the teaching and research on online journalism has become widespread in journalism faculties throughout the world. Such development has brought many undergraduate and graduate courses on the issue, as well as a number of networks of researchers and specialized publications in many countries. Once this initial process is over, it is time to bring the discipline of online journalism to its maturity at the university. For this aim, the author proposes to switch the current training model, which basically shows how to manage digital tools, to another broader one that teaches journalism principles and skills in an online environment. Regarding research, he suggests not to limit it to descriptive studies, but to develop also more analytical works that could better serve both the academic community and the online media professionals.