Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication and Information

Major Professor

Norman Swan

Committee Members

Kenneth Levine, Catherine Luther, Paul Gellert

Abstract

Professional journalism training in developing countries has been one of the most important elements in the U.S. democracy assistance program since the late 1980s. Numerous organizations were involved with these projects focusing on both journalism and management training. This study looked at the impact of the training from the perspective of training participants. Radio professionals were the subjects for this research because they experienced the training and could describe what they thought about training and how they made use of it in their work. Indonesia was selected because it was one of the countries that received a large amount of funding for training.

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of international media training on radio professionals in Indonesia. The study examined the effectiveness of training organizations in implementing training programs in Indonesia. Diffusion of innovation theory was used as a theoretical framework based on the premise that training has been one of the most common tools used to diffuse new ideas and knowledge other than the formal education setting. A mixed-methodology by combining focus group discussion and survey was used in order to understand the impact of training for Indonesian radio professionals.

Finding suggested that most journalists and managers adopted training and diffused the new knowledge and skills to fellow professionals. Some of them continued to adopt while others stopped due to both internal and external challenges. Journalists said management was the main obstacle to for adoption; while managers blamed the market situation. In addition, other factors that occurred in training also played a role in adoption including participant selection, needs assessment, training materials, trainers and the structure of training

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