TOWARDS NEW CO-CREATIONAL APPROACHES FOR RESEARCH AND SUPERVISION IN PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM DEGREE PROGRAMMES

Postgraduate research and supervision within the context of a professional degree in many ways constitute unchartered territory and new and innovative strategies will have to be developed to meet the calls from national policy agenda as well as the academy for increased postgraduate throughputs-demands often at odds with the development and prioritising of vocational skills development. Through a survey as well as interviews conducted with journalism lecturers as well as postgraduate students, I outline some of the challenges experienced and how these can be overcome to meet academic criteria for postgraduate research as well as broader national development goals and transformation agendas. The responses talk to a need for maintaining industry links and for recognising professional experience in the supervision process and what such experience contributes not only to the research project itself, but also to the articulation of new co-creative approaches to supervision.