Originality and Convention in Journalism Supervision

A key principle of Reflective Practice-Based Learning is that lecturers should design their teaching as a form of exploration, encouraging students to innovate and work creatively. Play and experimentation must, however, be balanced with the need to socialize students into the culture and norms of their future profes-sion, including dos and don’ts as established by tradition. While the balancing act between ‘originality’ and ‘convention’ has been studied extensively in the realm of PhD supervision, the topic remains nebulous in the context of practice-based journalism education. Providing a review of existing literature as well as a theoretical framework, this short paper outlines a preliminary qualitative research design that focuses on the role of the journalism supervisor. The paper proposes the methods of interview and observation as ways of gathering empirical data on how journalism supervisors at the Danish School of Media and Journalism balance originality and convention in practice. A possible strategy for case selection is presented and discussed.