Jan Slater is the Head of Advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to her appointment at Illinois, Slater was an associate professor and the associate director of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University for nine years. Slater joined the academy following a long career as an advertising practitioner, working in private industry, as well as advertising agencies in Omaha, Nebraska. When she left the business, she was running a successful advertising agency, J. Slater & Associates. Slater has been an active member of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication since 1995.
How do you define mass communication?
Mass Comm has traditionally referenced a means to conveying information to a population. I think many, in general, apply the mass media to the term. In the past — that has meant newspapers, magazines, and broadcast channels. My personal take on this is that communication has never been mass in its message — in that all messages have been tailored to a specific audience – and while we may have used mass media channels to deliver this – our message has been carefully crafted and targeted to a specific group.
Today, of course – mass media is shrinking in size and strength and consumption. That doesn’t change the context of our message – it simply changes the delivery.
Our students are the most technologically savvy users and consumers in the market. They completely understand the twitters, widgets, social networks, texting, blogging, online readership, search engines, gaming — you name it — they get it!!!! We keep them excited by exposing them to all the new opportunities that exist because of their knowledge of technology — and we assure them that we are going to send them out with the very best “communication” skills. While the job titles, job functions, and employers will change — the principles of what we are teaching – journalism, advertising, public relations have not changed. We’re simply adapting to new message creation and delivery systems.
Newspapers, magazines, and broadcast channels are changing how we gather and deliver news, and consumers get to choose the information they want in the form that they want. However, the basic principles of journalism have not changed. Review those principles at the Pew Research Center’s Project for the Excellence in Journalism. Nowhere do these principles dictate the channels in which we deliver journalism. All of those principles are worth fighting for. That is what our charge must be — fight to save journalism — not the old delivery systems. Keep our students excited about that.
What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?
I think we have to be more prominent on our campuses and in our communities and within our professions. Instead of focusing on the demise of the media, we should use our efforts and our skills to restore journalism’s position in a free society. We are the stewards of journalism — we must use our resources to teach, promote and practice journalism for any delivery system. And we must teach more about targeted storytelling and audience insights and consumer-generated content. We may need to teach more research methods to gain a better understanding of how people use and view content — specifically — news content. We may need to teach storytelling, film making, script writing, engineering new media. And we need to partner with each other and the professions. We have the scholarly resources to help them understand the implications of what is going on – as well as developing the new business models and delivery systems of the future.
If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?
I don’t think there is anyone course that makes a difference. I believe it is the curriculum as a whole – and how you weave the principles and skills of journalism through all those courses that matter. Once that philosophy is adopted — the sacred cow course becomes not so sacred.
If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?
Don’t be afraid of the change. Embrace it and enjoy it. Don’t think you have to know everything. Use experts. Use colleagues. Learn from your students. We have a great organization in AEJMC and we come together every August to share our ideas and our insights. We need do this more often than once a year to keep ourselves fresh and excited about the future. Hopefully, we can make that happen.