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From left to right: Tudor Vlad, Holly Simpson, and Lee Becker. |
Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication Results Released at the Annual AEJMC Conference in D.C.
The job market for journalism and mass communication graduates showed signs of continued improvement in 2012 and 2013, researchers at the University of Georgia reported in a special session at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August.
As one sign of the improved market, those earning bachelor’s degrees from journalism and mass communication programs around the country reported higher salaries than a year earlier, and the increase offset the impact of the relatively low inflation in the country, the researchers reported.
The team found that the improvements in the job market were not universal. Master’s degree recipients reported difficulty finding work and the same average salary as a year earlier.
University of Georgia researchers released these findings from the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates on Aug. 9. The conference was held at the Renaissance Washington Downtown Hotel.
Researchers Dr. Lee B. Becker, Dr. Tudor Vlad and Holly Simpson reported that enrollments in journalism and mass communication programs around the country declined by 2.9 percent in academic year 2012-2013 from a year earlier. This was the second year in a row in which enrollments dropped.
They also reported that the broad field of communication granted a higher percentage of its doctoral degrees to women than at any time in the recent past, but the percentage of those degrees going to minorities held steady.
More than 2,500 journalism and mass communication educators and others involved in the field attended the conference, held Aug. 8 to 11. Most conference attendees were from the United States, but delegates also came from other countries around the world.
Each year, a special session at the conference is dedicated to reports of the findings of the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication.
The Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication are designed to monitor the employment rates and salaries of graduates of journalism and mass communication programs in the United States and the enrollments in those same programs.
The surveys are housed in the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research and used in the Center’s international programming.
The Cox International Center is the international outreach unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Becker, director of the Cox Center, has directed the directed survey project since 1987. Dr. Vlad is associate director of the Cox Center. Simpson is a graduate student in the Center.
Copies of the survey findings are available from the Annual Surveys web page.
