The arrival of the Internet and, more recently, the World Wide Web has not changed the basic role of the journalist in our society. According to John Bowes, associate professor of communications, the functions of inquiry, observation, research, editing, and writing remain much the same as before.
``Despite advances in technology,
distribution is an inherent problem
in print media,'' reflects associate professor of
communications John
Bowes. ``That's where computer-based media or an electronic
publication
shine; delivery is just an instant away.''
How the journalist pursues these functions, however, has changed. Email
and Web pages provide new channels for distributing the products of
journalism. Many newspapers in America now have Web pages that offer
supplemental information. The Internet also provides improved access to
information, particularly to original data.
Bowes teaches his students to explore and exploit these changes in Communications 301: Navigating Information Networks for Mass Media. The course combines the methods of precision journalism (what Bowes calls ``a marriage of the research techniques of social science and the expository skills of journalism'') with the skills of using the current, easily accessible wealth of data provided via the Internet and the Web.
During the seventies and eighties it was difficult to get the data in a usable form. Although laws such as the Freedom of Information Act required that the information be available, agencies often only supplied raw data on computer tapes. Reporters needed considerable computer skills to decode and interpret data provided this way.
The growth of the Internet in the late eighties and the appearance of the Web in the early nineties changed that. Many agencies and organizations now make huge amounts of information available online to anyone.
``We teach students how to capture this electronically available data,'' says Bowes, ``and how to parse it and load it into a spreadsheet.'' Using the spreadsheet, students do cross-tabulations, summarize across categories, and calculate measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode). They may do some simple tests of statistical inference, which is especially important in reviewing political poll data. They also may reformat the data for output to statistical programs (such as SPSS or SAS) for more complex analysis.
``Once the analysis is done, students write a news story about it,'' Bowes explains, ``perhaps using graphics or tables to make it attractive and interesting without creating distortion.''
``A good part of 301 is hands-on,'' says Bowes. ``You can't just talk
about it. You have to do it. If you look at our site on the Web
(
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scmuweb/classes/316/syllabus.html),
you'll see about ten assignments that sequentially build a body of
skills.''
Discussion, during and between classes, often takes place by email. Each student has a computer account for email, and messages are sent to all the students via a class list. Bowes has found that as students using email become less reluctant to communicate with their classmates and the professor, they become less reluctant to communicate with experts on campus and outside the university as well.
``Everyone knows that email tends to collapse a status hierarchy,'' says Bowes. ``Students are gaining the power to launch an email query into the heart of the federal bureaucracy. Yes, the White House will send a machine- generated reply, but some lesser functionary may give them a personal reply and point them to a source of data.''
``The promise of this technology is that, at reasonable cost, you can put into people's hands what they must otherwise come to an educational center to have,'' explains Bowes. ``I'm not saying you can put the UW on the Web, but you can certainly find libraries, archives, and raw data there.''
By exploring the use of new technologies in the classroom and by focusing on empowering students for lifelong learning, Bowes is designing his courses so that he can teach not only today's students, but those beyond the classroom walls tomorrow.