How COVID-19 will change the relationship between Education and Journalism
Updated: May 10, 2020
Opinion
COVID-19 will change the relation between education and journalism by forcing these to adopt remote conferencing and digital learning in similar ways to how the online gaming entertainment media industry operates (like gaming YouTubers and Twitch streamers).
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It’s safe to say that the novel coronavirus has reshaped life around the world. Not since World War II have countries globally seen lockdown of so many institutions. Education, has been a big sector affected by this monumental societal change.
So much that, COVID illustrated how interconnected the world is, a view shared by educators Poornima Luthra and Sandie Mackenzie, who say “successful people in the coming decades need to be able to understand this interrelatedness and navigate across boundaries to leverage their differences and work in a globally collaborative way”.
[Profiles on Poornima Luthra and Sandie Mackenzie in the link below, as well as their article hosted on the World Economic Frum]
In an article for the World Economic Forum, they claim that this pandemic has the possibility of reshaping the way we educate in an interconnected world, arguing that the notion of educators being knowledge-holders “is no longer fit for the purpose of a 21st-century education” as students have easy access to the limitless knowledge database that is the internet.
While these claims are potential outcomes that stem from the pandemic, the fact that educational institutions were compelled to quickly adopt and utilise technology like Zoom as a solution to continue education is solid validation of how closely interconnected we are.
It’s important to point out how these technologies were also ‘big players’ before the pandemic, but it’s safe to say that services like Zoom or Microsoft Teams have had a boost due to the novel coronavirus.
My industry however, finds itself in an awkward position. I work as a Digital Media Editor for the digital education branch of a news publisher. It was common for me to travel with a videographer or another editor to cover conferences, but of course that’s not possible anymore.
Remote journalism isn’t new; it is common in the US and in other large countries, and in the UK a clip of a baby walking in in the middle of an interview because the father (who was being interviewed) forgot to lock the door; has been widely shared online.
In the medical education space, where I work, major conferences are being cancelled and so the organisers must find new solutions to share the research of physicians. These conferences are very popular to share and discuss new data, so they are seen in many cases as central to the education of many physicians and practicing surgeons.
COVID-19, leaves conference organisers and news publishers to require webinars and live streams to be able to disseminate new studies and data and that in turn also means that those who are used to travelling to conferences will only be able to get these updates through virtual means.
This is how the novel coronavirus will change the relation between education and media.
The same way that Luthra and Mackenzie argued how the corona virus has shown how interconnected we are, it has also forced news publishers and leading conference organisers to find ways to focus our digital content towards audiences that may not be used to consuming digital media.
In the case of the doctors who are used to travelling to conferences, if they want to continue to get updates in their field, they will have to go online; there’s no way around that.
Now it won’t just be younger generations who are ‘internet savvy’, adults and older generations are already prone to use digital resources to improve their wellbeing, hence it’s reasonable to assume they’ll be prone to engage with live streams and webinars that interest them.
The prospect of big player conferences and publishers leaning towards a trend of adopting these remote and digital learning opportunities doesn’t seem far-fetched. As an example, the gaming journalism platform IGN has created its own digital conference called ‘IGN Summer of Gaming’, which is due to happen around the time one of the biggest conferences in the world, E3, would have happened.
Whether using Zoom, Microsoft teams or webinar/ live streaming platforms, there will be a new multimedia landscape in these publishers that will certainly utilise online live streaming technologies as a way to reach a larger audience since it will have become accustomed to the use of these online technologies.
And it’s not hard to imagine remote participants in these live streams, especially seeing how the gaming industry has already successfully adopted and integrated these remote technologies to entertainment media.
Listen to the first podcasts where we talk about how we are keeping sane during isolation and also discuss how COVID-19 has forced education and digital media to merge and how this new-forged combination will continue even after all this happens.
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