Journalism

1. Program Description 

The Journalism program in NNU was initiated in 1962, and, through five decades’ development, has become a core program in the School of Journalism and Communication. This program was appraised as a key discipline of Jiangsu Province in 2001, and awarded the qualification of conferring master’s degree in 1996 and doctoral degree in 2005, making it the first doctoral program in Journalism in Jiangsu Province and also the first one among China’s normal universities. This program is also national-level characteristic one, whose performances of researches into media and rural development and media law are top in China.

In teaching, the top priority of the Journalism program is given to cultivating the learning style of independent thinking and the awareness of aggressiveness and innovation, together with curriculum arrangement optimization, discipline characteristics enhancement and market demand satisfaction, to explore a talent training mode befitting the development needs of journalism. In hardware, superior experiment conditions are available for this program, including an electronic editing laboratory, a telephone survey laboratory and a media data acquisition center. Profound teaching staff strength, powerful scientific research capacities and advanced laboratory equipment contribute to the outstanding teaching achievements in the Journalism program. Additionally, in this program, close cooperation and communication are maintained with important academic institutions and media organizations both at home and abroad; outstanding experts, scholars, editors and journalists are regularly invited and employed to deliver lecture series to students in this program, expanding their scope of knowledge and developing their role awareness.

The cultivation objectives of this program are: educate and cultivate professional talents with systematic theoretical knowledge and skills of journalism, extensive cultural and scientific knowledge, familiarity with Chinese policies and laws on journalism and propaganda, innovative spirit and practical ability for media organizations at various levels; educate and cultivate journalism talents knowing journalism business, editing techniques and public relations skills for social organizations (e.g. enterprises, institutions and social groups); educate and cultivate journalism talents with the ability of governmental information release, international communication and public relations in crisis for governmental agencies; educate and cultivate interdisciplinary talents knowing content acquisition, production, editing, management and mastering necessary network techniques for telecommunications agencies; educate and cultivate interdisciplinary talents with abilities of news communication, contents production, network editing and operational management for various commercial websites in public.  

A large number of excellent graduates from this program have been working actively in new media organizations, Party and governmental organs, universities and colleges at various levels in China, as an important force for the development of Chinese journalism and journalism education. 

2. Program Duration and Credit

This is a four-year undergraduate program, which, depending on individual students, can be completed with a minimum of three years and a maximum of seven years.

A total of 156 credits are required upon the completion of the program, of which 49 credits are general knowledge courses, 30 credits are basic curriculum courses, 47 credits are essential curriculum courses and 30 credits are elective curriculum courses.

Bachelor of Arts will be conferred to those having completed all the required courses in the cultivation plan of this program, acquired the required credits and complying with the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees and the (Amended) Regulations on Conferring Bachelor’s Degree to Regular Higher Educational Students of Nanjing Normal University.

3. Curriculum

(1) Basic Curriculum (30 credits)

I. General Platform Curriculum

Course Code	Course	Core Course or Not	Credit	Remark
100501142101	Ancient Literature		4
100501142102	Modern and Contemporary Literature		3
100303142101	Introduction to Sociology		3
100503142102	TV Videography and Editing		4	Including 1 credit for practice
100503142101	Theory of communication	Yes	3
100503142103	Journalism Theory	Yes	3

II. Basic Curriculum of the Program

Course Code	Course	Core Course or Not	Credit	Remark
100503142218	Professional Introduction and Discussion of Journalism		2
100503142217	Law of Journalism and Communication	Yes	3
100503142201	Public Relations		2
100503142212	Media Survey		3

 (2) Essential Curriculum (47 credits)

Course Code	Course	Core Course or Not	Credit	Remark
100503143034	History of Chinese Journalism	Yes	3
100503143022	History of Foreign Journalism	Yes	3
100503142202	Introduction to Broadcasting and Television		3
100503143026	News Gathering	Yes	3
100503143029	Junior News Writing	Yes	3
100503143030	Senior News Writing	Yes	3
100503143025	News Editing	Yes	3
100503143010	Journalism Comment	Yes	3
100503143008	Network Communication Science		3
100503143028	Electronic News Editing and Practicing		4	Including 3 credits for practice
100503143013	Integration of News Interview, Writing, Editing and Review		4	Practical course
100503143002	Graduation Internship		8	Practical course
100503143001	Graduation Paper (Design)		4	Practical course

 (3) Elective Curriculum (30 credits)

Course Code	Course	Credit	Remark
100503144017	Psychology of Communication	2
100503144049	Comparison of TV Programs between China and Foreign Countries	2
100503144051	Comparison of Sino-Western News Reporting	2
100503144042	New Media Animation Editor	3	Including 3 credits for practice
100503144036	Practical News Release	3
100503144047	Political Communication Studies	2
100503143035	Public Opinion Polls and Analysis	2	Including 1 credit for practice
100503144012	Crisis Communication Management	2
100503144010	Mandarin Basics	2
100503144018	Mass Communication and Mass Culture	2
100503144005	Media Operation and Management	3
100503142204	Introduction to Advertising	3
100503144044	Journalism Photography	4	Including 2 credits for practice
100503144022	Broadcasting News Gathering and Editing	2
100503144014	Public Opinions	2
100503144030	Media Sociology	3
100503144004	Communication History of Radio and Television Broadcasting	2
100503144013	Introduction to Culture Industries	2
100503144045	Professional English of Journalism	2
100503144048	History of Chinese Editing and Publishing	2

4. Core Courses and Introductions

100503142101   Theory of communication  (3.00 cr.)

This course serves as an introductory course for students to gain an overview of communication theory and the history of communication study. The course, which represents a sampling of the outstanding breakthrough discoveries in mass communication research over the past six decades, introduces students to a broad range of issues concerning the role, effects and limitations of communication in modern society. Upon completion, students will have a full understanding of communication studies and communication theories, which can be implemented to explain practical communication phenomena and conduct communication researches.

100503142103   Journalism Theory  (3.00 cr.)

Journalism theory is a basic theoretical course to journalism profession and it describes the basic phenomenon and law of communication and journalism. This course includes four sections: Essence Theory, Channel Theory, Control Theory, Management Theory and Theory of Party Media. Essence Theory mainly introduces the connotation of Journalism and sums up the basic law of news communication activities. Channel Theory carefully analyses the news communication course on the basic of five links of media, content, gatekeeper, audience and effect. Control Theory studies model and law of how political power, capital power and social relation control journalism. Management Theory discusses management system and cooperation model of news media. The Theory of Party Media introduces the main sources and contents of socialism news ideology.

100503142217   Law of Journalism and Communication  (3.00 cr.)

This is a required course for the major of journalism and network & new media. The course makes introduction about media laws and regulations, media ethics and disciplines. Focusing on investigating issues connected with media regulations and ethics in China, the course also involves various aspects such as the generation, operation, and supervision of the journalism, and other related issues such as the responsibility of media and the professional ethics of journalism practitioners. The course also emphasizes on instructing students to analyze realistic news and media phenomenon, carry out media criticism at the same time of teaching the basic concepts and theories about media regulations and ethics.

100503143034　  History of Chinese Journalism  (3.00 cr.)

This course studies the history of Chinese journalism. It aims to clarify the evolution of Chinese journalism, analyze and reveal the underlying principles. The main contents of the course includes introduction to the ancient Chinese news media, studying the influence of foreign newspapers upon the Chinese native newspapers, introduction to the emergence and significance of the politician’s journalistic pattern from the late 19th to the early 20th, making a profile of the Chinese journalism from the establishment of New Youth which promoting the new culture movement to the year 1949,description of the development of the Chinese journalism since the foundation of People’s Republic of China, etc. During the process of teaching, the integrated use of lecture, discussion, seminars will be emphasized so as to enhance the overall effectiveness of teaching.

100503143022   History of Foreign Journalism  (3.00 cr.)

This course mainly introduces the development history of foreign journalism and its evolution law. The content mainly includes: the basic situation of ancient news dissemination; the influence of the introduced foreign newspapers; the occurrence and significance of newspaper running models in the world's major countries, including the five countries such as Britain and France, America and Japan; the development from the "new news" to the modern newspapers. The methods of teaching of theory, class discussions, workshops and so on will be comprehensively used in the teaching progress to improve the teaching effect.

100503143026   News Gathering  (3.00 cr.)

News Gathering is a course to research the regular pattern and methods of news materials gathering. In the process of newsgathering, the reporter forms the special relations with news facts, interviewees and the audiences of reporting. This course focuses on these special relations and tries to find the rules, theories and methods of interviewing. In this course, the students should comprehend these principles and on that basis, they should learn to use these principles and methods so that they can complete interviewing and reporting independently.

100503143029   Junior news writing  (3.00 cr.)

This course is one of the main courses of major journalism. It is a set with senior news writing. Students will learn how to write simple news report and how to use basic theory of journalism, while they will learn how to write feature and in-depth report and how to use complex theory.

100503143030　 Senior news writing  (3.00 cr.)

This course is one of the main courses of major journalism. It is a set with senior news writing. Students will learn how to write simple news report and how to use basic theory of journalism, while they will learn how to write feature and in-depth report and how to use complex theory.

100503143025   News Editing  (3.00 cr.)

This course is part of the basic trainings of news skills, which requires students to be equipped with basic techniques of news writing and interviewing. The teacher systematically introduces the ways of collecting news as well as the techniques and principles of editing in Internet era. Most importantly, the students learn the skills of selecting information, modifying drafts, deciding news titles, editing pictures and assembling various types of news information. The course combines teaching with practicing and focuses on developing practical skills of students.

100503143010   Journalism Comment  (3.00 cr.)

Combining theory and practice，this course pays attention to the study and use of journalism comment and writing in the contemporary era，including the scientific theories of journalism comment and the basic procedures and useful skills of writing. By learning this course，students could master the knowledge of journalism comment，improve their writing capacity through comments training and get scientific ideas which are good for their work in the future.