Canada’s first-ever Journalistic Role Performance Conference is coming to TMU

The Journalistic Role Performance (JRP) Canada team is holding its inaugural conference, titled Between ideals and practices: Journalistic role performance in transformative times. The conference is taking place in-person, with some virtual components, on May 24, 2023 at the Rogers Communications Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University, with the aim of exploring the factors shaping journalism in an industry facing critical resource shortages, political polarization, and a years-long pandemic. 

Nicole Blanchett, Principal Investigator of the Canadian team for the JRP project and the lead organizer of the conference, notes that the conference provides researchers, academics and journalists with the opportunity to collaborate with each other and hear from diverse voices from across the world.

“This conference is a great opportunity to hear from and meet researchers from the Global North and South,” she said. “It's a particular goal of the organizers to make this conference inclusive and accessible and to amplify a diversity of voices and different types of studies. We're also very excited to have two amazing keynote speakers.”

Shaping the media landscape

The conference will host two renowned keynote speakers: Dr. Claudia Mellado and Dr. Daniel Hallin. Mellado is the head of the international Journalistic Role Performance project, and will be travelling from Chile to share her experiences as a leader in the development of cross-national research beyond a Western lens. Hallin is a communications scholar whose work on media systems has impacted and influenced countless academic works examining journalism.

In between the keynote speeches, attendees will have the opportunity to explore a variety of breakout sessions featuring different topics, including precarious work in journalism, Canadian reporting practice and democratic ideals, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the journalism industry as a whole. Speakers from around the world will be presenting at each of the breakout sessions, including those from Japan, Mexico, UK, Egypt and more. 

Bridging education and practice

Blanchett says the conference will provide attendees with a better understanding of journalism, what it means to be a journalist, and how the best research requires academics and journalists to work together.

“A large goal of the conference is to build bridges between the academic community and journalists in order to improve the quality of research into journalistic practice,” she said. “By bringing journalists and academics into the same room to discuss findings, we're hoping to effect a significant change in research practice that could help ensure journalism continues to provide essential information to people across the globe.”

The student perspective

Anna Maria Moubayed, a third-year Journalism student and Research Assistant for JRP Canada, says the experience, although daunting, has provided a great opportunity to work on a large scale event and learn from journalists in the field. 

“As a student, being part of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of planning a conference can be intimidating, especially when working with experts in the field, but it's a very good reminder that they are happy to guide you and be a mentor, which is all a university student could ask for,” she said. “As a Research Assistant at JRP, you get to do a lot of research you otherwise wouldn't have done on your own, which opens up a whole new world on the topic of journalism.”

Third-year Journalism student Sama Nemat Allah has been working with the JRP Canada team since her first year of studies. Her role as an accessibility coordinator for the conference ensures that knowledge is able to be shared equitably across demographics and that barriers are reduced to those audiences. 

“To me, this means ensuring the conference location is physically accessible, having virtual streaming options and even walking presenters through how to describe images in their presentation for Blind, visually-impaired and low-vision participants,” she said. “But this also means considering academic accessibility: is the language we're using digestible to all audiences or are we relying on jargon that's exclusively exchanged in small (inaccessible) circles?”  

Journalism student Kayla Thompson says working as the JRP Conference Communications Coordinator has allowed her to put her school-learned skills to real-world industry practice.

"Working towards putting this conference together with the help of my professor Nicole Blanchett, has been an enjoyable experience because of our incredible team of JRP assistants, professors, and researchers from Canada and around the world,” she said. “A highlight of this experience was producing a podcast titled ‘Meet the Researchers’ in which I got the chance to write, edit, record, and package together my first podcast, introducing the researchers who will be joining us in May for the conference." 

View the  (PDF file) program (external link)  for the Between ideals and practices conference and register on the JRP Canada website (external link) .

The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University

The Creative School is a dynamic faculty that is making a difference in new, unexplored ways. Made up of Canada’s top professional schools and transdisciplinary hubs in media, communication, design and cultural industries, The Creative School offers students an unparalleled global experience in the heart of downtown Toronto.