NEWSTRANS is the core theory and model/building project running through all center activities, combining the pillar themes 1) transition journalism, 2) troubled pasts, 3) digital transformations, and 4) journalism education. As the term implies, GjC centers on societal transformations, reflected in journalism and how it covers transition // being instituions in transition themselves.
The NEWSTRANS theme will be used to build and strengthen capacity through members-oriented workshops, invitations to project scans, joint literature reviews, roundtable conversations online with invited speakers, and more.
On the NEWSTRANS platform, we will seek to solicit funding and donations for projects, a joint online PhD school, as well as a F2F summer school ambulating annually between participating members' home institutions.
A number of GjC members have engaged in r&d projects funded by Norwegian development/education aid agencies for the past 15 years to build research-based MA and PhD degrees in journalism and communication, partnering with universities in South Africa, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Kosovo. In sum, these projects have been financed with about $75 million USD over the years. New projects are under way, with the principal project hosting institution being NLA University College.
RePAST is a EU/funded project organizing a number of European universities, UiA being the authoring partner in the project. It investigates how European societies deal with their troubled pasts today through the analysis of conflict discourses rooted in those pasts, with a view to the impact of those discourses on European integration. The project implements actions and proposes strategies both at the levels of policy-making and civil society, for reflecting on these discourses to strengthen European integration.
World of Journalism is a comprehensive international, comparative study of journalism and the professional context of journalists, spanning a decade of research based on a nation-state mode of comparison. Several GjC members are key contributors to WJS. More on the below links:
Changing Journalism Paradigms is our invitation project for 2021, in which we seek to theoretically and empirically investigate the idea of 'paradigms' as a means of understanding and comparing underlying and tacit aspects of how global journalism is being understood and practiced around the world. Building on the notion of 'scientific paradigms' from science philosopher Thomas Kuhn, the project aims to elicit ways and means by which GjC might articulate a long-term research and innovation portfolio. As Kuhn notes, there is 'normal science' and 'revolutionary science when dominant explanatorey models break down. Accordingly, we ask whether there is 'normal journalism' and 'revolutionary journalism' in contects where the orthodox models break down. Discussions of 'peace journalism', 'solutions journalism', innovation journalism', 'development journalism' and more will shape these interactions.
The project will also inform the platform for PhD coursework and summer school plans.