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There have been no systematic research studies on online study programmes that educate journalists in the world. Besides, there are neither data about the number of online study programmes of journalism education, their structure and quality, nor the way they ensure their own sustainability. Even though they have existed in some countries for more than twenty years, and lately their number has been growing. This makes it a completely new scientific topic, part of the discourse about trends in journalism education in higher educational practice which emphasises digital education as the central part of the Digital Education Action Plan (2021 – 2027) of the European Commission. From the Croatian perspective of journalism as an occupation, this is an extremely important topic from numerous standpoints: journalism is still not a regulated profession, both those with a secondary and higher education qualification can be employed as journalists, the media and new technologies have a significant impact on the higher journalism education system, journalists and editors are susceptible to political and marketing influences, the media content quality decreases due to uneducated journalists and the new communication circumstances brought along by the internet and social media (Vukić, 2017). Having in mind the increased range of journalists’ work, the new circumstances in which it is conducted (COVID- 19 pandemic), and the new competencies required by the profession in the global, online and ever- changing world, new possibilities of higher journalism education should be sought for as an expansion and addition to the traditional ones. In the long term, the first postgraduate specialist online study that educates journalists could help solve the problem of inadequately educated employed journalists. That this is a contemporary topic also from the pedagogical angle is confirmed by the growing number of various online study programmes in Croatia (13). Using the analysis method and SWOT and PESTLE tools, the paper aims to determine the internal and external micro and macro indicators which could incite and/or prevent the establishment of the potential online postgraduate study programme that educates journalists in Croatia intended to be used by all interested parties from the former Yugoslavia territory. Those are frameworks successfully used for strategic planning of the developmental process in higher education (Bakoğlu et al., 2016), determining the impact of study programmes (Dixit and Marahatta, 2008), in the analysis of the existing education (Wsthues, Lafrance and Schmidt, 2010 ; Walsh, Bhagavatheeswaran and Roma, 2019), and initiation of new study programmes (Balamuralikrishna and Dugger, 1995). The purpose of this research is to bring forth scientifically grounded conclusions about the justification of establishing the aforementioned study programme. The research is still in progress as an activity of the three- year international scientific institutional project Higher Education of Journalists in a Digital Environment (HEJDE). Up to now, it has been determined that the greatest challenge would be the study programme sustainability from the organisational and financial aspect, and since the occupation of a specialist in journalism does not exist in Croatia, its definition will be a legal issue as well. |
