New ways in multimedia journalism education: Transnational online project day on digitalisation of the world of work

But fISMJ as a window to Europe

For many young journalists from Ukraine and Georgia, the International School of Multimedia Journalism (ISMJ) means inspiration, a window to Europe and confrontation with a completely different working world. For most participants from Austria and Denmark, the ISMJ is a voyage of discovery into an unknown world. But for all participants, regardless of where they come from, the ISMJ means overcoming one’s own limits and growing in the face of challenges.

In order to live up to this claim even in times of a pandemic and to further deepen the cooperation with the partner countries, a transnational online project day on the topic of “Digitalisation of the world of work” took place for the first time this year. This online ISMJ served as preparation for the regular ISMJ 2022, which will be held again in July next year in face-to-face classes and where the participants can again work together on multimedia reports.

Focus on digital competencies

During the one-day project day of the Online-ISMJ 2021, the students were given an insight into the ISMJ and got to know the responsible persons, lecturers and other participants from the partner universities. The focus was on the acquisition of competences by the participants: The work in international teams using current digital tools; the development of basic journalistic skills such as research or interviewing as well as the creation of journalistic multimedia reports with the online tool Pageflow.io.

After working on the topic and a brief introduction to the tools used, the students received an introduction to the basics of multimedia journalism and storytelling with the help of practical examples. For their own multimedia reports, the participants worked in small groups separated by country due to the online setting and the time difference.

In their multimedia reports, the participants dealt with current questions about the digitalisation of the world of work and its consequences.

The consequences of digitalisation

In the resulting works, the students dealt with a variety of current issues around the blurring of spatial and temporal boundaries of work. They showed the limits of digitalisation, for example, by means of public authority tasks, and dealt with the challenges of studying almost exclusively online in many countries.

“2019 was the beginning of the zoom classes and the ending for the face to face classes.”

The multimedia reports thus also reflected the reality of the students and gave the other participants an insight into the current study situation in other countries. In a final round of presentations, the individual works were presented and learning outcomes were discussed together. Despite the dense agenda for a single day, the participants agreed on one thing at the end: they were looking forward to the next round in summer 2022, but this time in presence.

Further details about the ISMJ and all previous project work can be found on the project page at https://multimediajournalism.eu/.