The message , vision, and goals of journalism department

•The Department of Media was established at the College of Arts, Wasit University in 2019.
•Foundations
The process of developing media departments begins on the basis of developing the following capabilities and skills:
1-The ability to think, criticize, investigate, analyze and use investigative methods in the media.
2-The ability to write and the power of descriptive and analytical expression.
3-The ability to use modern communication technology , its media and information uses , Operate digital cameras in general and use them especially in television, work on modern editing devices, know graphics and their uses, and operate and manage radio, both traditionally and electronically.
4-Knowledge of current affairs and issues and general knowledge of history and geography.
5-Familiarity with media legislation and codes of honor.
6-Raising the fields of media work with specific skills that bring about a change in the traditional field of work.

•Vision and message

We now live in a new era that is constantly developing and changing, and it is necessary to catch up with it and try to innovate the visions, work mechanisms, and methods of preparing graduates to keep pace with the times and its field requirements. Therefore, the previous visions are no longer valid for adoption in the twenty-first century, which witnessed the birth of a “media authority” that dropped visions, media performance, and its traditional theories. After a communication authority emerged that does not know borders and restrictions and communicates quickly with everything new through global digital, social and mass communication networks of multiple styles, in which the citizen became the sender and recipient in a framework that the communication expert (Manuel Castells) called (mass self-media).

Therefore, our mission in teaching media must go beyond studying the previous skills of the pillars of the communication process through traditional media and a deep awareness of the dimensions of the change taking place in the authority of horizontal interactive media. In light of the above, we agree with the visions that Castells came up with, which aim to try to form authority and how to control it. Our minds are mediated by the communication processes that we need to go beyond the identity of the sender and how the message is produced in the process of making, transmitting, and formulating power in electronic communication networks. We must also understand how it is processed and can ultimately identify the mechanisms of making power in a specific form of linking communication networks and meaning in our world and the networks of communication and meaning in our minds.
These visions push us to think seriously about moving from approaches that seek to adopt traditional models of media to communications that adopt new models and theories. It has the power to change not only the media structure, but it expands to include mastering comprehensive societal expression in all fields through the use of media in the development and democratic transformation of a free civil society.
•goals
(Educational processes) and (university knowledge management) are supposed to reach specific goals set by universities for society and field media work fields, including current and future skills for the entire society and not exclusively for the official or party media. These theoretical and practical skills expand with quality and contemporaneity and their ability to keep pace with the fields of international media work and the knowledge of dealing with the flow of information from shared sources. Therefore, the media graduate must possess a technical knowledge grant that provides high training and deep education in theories and ethics in order to contribute to the development of media fields in society and protect them from deviations and grant them… The ability to persuade and confront counter-propaganda and psychological warfare. The simplest requirements are for the curricula to succeed in combining theoretical culture with practical applications and to adopt modern teaching methods that help the student to accurately identify and properly understand the technical components of the media process, such as mass communication networks and their means, radio and television systems and their operating methods, electronic production techniques, the content of journalistic editing, and the economics of media and its various systems. Legislation, ethics, freedom of expression, and developing a spirit of objective criticism instead of indoctrination and repeating information.
At the level of postgraduate studies, we must shift from abstract descriptive studies to in-depth experimental research related to other sciences, and adopt experimental standards to evaluate media performance on the basis of quality and correct standards to correct the path. Postgraduate research must be transformed into a laboratory for producing distinctive applied media projects to reveal the researcher’s ability. Practically, and not just a theoretical review of previous research, it does not constitute any addition that benefits science or the field of work, and it is merely a certificate that the researcher enjoys job privileges.
E-learning methods and quality standards must be adopted in light of the new communication environment so that the holder of the initial and higher certificates possesses a large balance of practical and applied experience and finds a distinguished position in local and international media institutions and decision-making circles in senior administrations and in scientific research centers. Thus, the goal of the productive university is achieved.
•Mechanisms
The mechanisms used now in teaching media focus on the theoretical descriptive aspects of media arts, including a description of the applications used in radio and television, social factors, and information technologies, and not training and practical application on it, except what is rare and within narrow limits, and this is due to:
1-Curricula vocabulary is dominated by theoretical lessons in basic and auxiliary subjects.
2-Lack of electronic, technical, material and human infrastructure that provides regular training for students, such as modern laboratories and studios for radio, television and sound with all their accessories, including satellite broadcasting systems.
3-Most teachers lack the skills to use electronic communication techniques related to radio and television production in a way that ensures the completion of student media projects throughout the academic year instead of useless theoretical narration. This requires reconsidering the qualification of teachers or supporting them with technical staff that supervises training and project production.
Media colleges and departments in Iraq are in real need of restructuring the entire educational process and transforming it into applied structures that focus on laboratories and applications.
4-It is necessary to reconsider the number of study units and focus on the training units that grant semester grades and for which annual practical tests are conducted, which have a preponderance in the student’s general average based on his balance of applied projects.
6-Promoting self-paced e-learning methods and the mechanism of development and adaptation to modern technology, communications, information, and open distance education sources, and investing in education and increasing its skills.

In light of the above, the need arises to carry out radical reforms to the methods of education in media colleges and departments in Iraqi universities to achieve the minimum requirements for a graduate who is actually qualified to work in media institutions to constitute a qualitative addition to the work fields.
In the last decade, the number of accepted students has increased, and colleges and departments specializing in primary and graduate media studies have expanded, while ignoring the adoption of comprehensive quality management in those institutions and adopting working and teaching methods that are no longer valid in light of the tremendous developments witnessed in the media, communication technology, and university education methods that are required to represent visions. It is ahead of the prevailing patterns, creating a qualitative evolutionary shift that confirms the increase of universities and their leadership of society.
Developing the performance of the educational process in the field of media must focus, through an integrated approach, on the development, interconnection and integration of five basic elements:
The first element: the cognitive aspect

This means theoretical study units related to media and communication sciences and the results of international theories, ideas and experiences in this field, which are divided into two axes.

•First: Basic media lessons in the specialty must take into account the following:
•Its share must not be less than 60% of the total units and it is granted to the student in the form of installments that integrate with the progression of the academic years from the first year until the end of the fourth year.
•B- The commitment of teaching bodies to announce to students, through various means, all academic vocabulary, its sources, and related training fields, based on the nature of the academic system and the annual academic calendar approved by the university, along with the use of auxiliary curricula approved by academic committees and college councils.
•It is necessary for these subjects to be taught, especially in the first years, by teachers with precise specialization and high academic degrees (professor – assistant professor) who hold a doctorate, to build a knowledge structure that helps development.
•The academic vocabulary must be kept fresh and constantly nourished with new developments in knowledge and current experiences in the media, information and cognitive arena.
•Communicating with reputable universities and trying to interact with their curricula and methods and interacting with them and the possibility of transferring some experiences and vocabulary.
•Second: Assistance lessons
The most prominent auxiliary lessons are Arabic, English, and computers. It is assumed that the aspects related to the media will be deepened and transformed from auxiliary materials into applied knowledge materials on the uses of the two languages ​​in the field of media and communication, and an emphasis on language rules and etiquette.
The second element (cultural materials)

These are subjects related to national, cultural, and human history, and others concerned with democratic transformation, human rights issues, media legislation, and professional ethics, and must not exceed 10% of the total curriculum. Even these materials can be adapted through practical applications that make them interconnected with cognitive materials and problems in the fields of daily media work.
The third element (practical training)

It constitutes a qualitative challenge in our current situation, as it requires the availability of the following:
•Modern equipment and equipment for electronic journalism (advanced news rooms), HD studios with their accessories designed for training, production, editing, and broadcasting purposes, modern radio, and cameras with qualities comparable to those used in international media work fields.
•Trainers with a high level of skill and experience in operating radio and television technologies and associated electronic systems. This task is supposed to be performed by teaching staff, but the majority do not have this experience, so the need assumes their qualification or the use of trainers from the middle staff who supervise the laboratories.
C-Trainers with a high level of skill and experience in operating radio and television technologies and associated electronic systems. This task is supposed to be performed by teaching staff, but the majority do not have this experience, so the need assumes their qualification or the use of trainers from the middle staff who supervise the laboratories.
D-The importance of developing a plan to design lectures for experienced students with training dimensions and not as hosts for displaying CVs.
E-Working to provide self-training requirements in colleges and departments to ensure optimal qualification.
F-Employing field training in media courses to ensure actual integration into the production process by monitoring and following up on its approach.
G-Adopting the productive projects system in the training processes from the four years of study and throughout one year and not limiting it to the graduation project.
H-Following methods of preparation and encouragement for creative and distinguished people and their participation in local and international workshops and competitions on media production, and urging them to work in the media before graduation to gain experience.
The fourth element (educational standard)

It is viewed from two angles. The first is to consolidate the new generation of policies of erasing identity and dismantling the value system. This is done through complementary programs for cognitive and training lessons, activating the interactive role of the teacher with his students via social media, conducting scientific surveys to see the students’ cognitive level, developing programs to advance it and identifying points. Weakness and strength. The second angle is to focus on the necessity of digital media education and consider it an important element that represents openness to contemporary technologies and how to deal with them within a framework of balance between the angle of expression guaranteed to the individual and its framework of responsibilities towards others and respect for regulations and laws.
The fifth element (teaching methods)

In order to activate his role in the educational process, the media student needs to follow innovative scientific and applied means and methods that require teaching bodies, scientific committees and department administrations to follow up, review and update them and give them sufficient time and optimal investment of university full-time hours over the course of the academic week to reach the set goals.
This can be done by:
•Modern methods in electronic teaching methods, collecting information, updating it, and developing it through psychological, pedagogical, and other educational methods.
•Modern technological means of communication, such as electronic information networks, modern equipment for radio and television production, and graphic, audio, and satellite broadcasting laboratories.
I-Innovative halls that differ from the traditional classroom system and provide explanations and smart electronic methods for training.
The sixth element (cognitive quality)

Any project intended for progress and success must be accompanied by a plan in which quality standards and standards are applied in order to know the level of change and development, provided that this is done objectively and with high professionalism and in a way whose results are strongly reflected in the course of the cognitive plan. These standards are derived from the general rules of quality and other influences filtered from the field of specialization. Accurate, and there must be a highly efficient unit to carry out this difficult task of quality control by adopting one of the main models of evaluation. The British model, which relies on self-evaluation and not external evaluation (Peer.Evaluation), is the best, and other external standards can also be used.

This evaluation includes the five elements we mentioned, which represent the pillars of the educational process with its cognitive, cultural, skills and ethical aspects, and measuring the opinions of all the active elements in the material and human process as a model prepared by experts in this field.