Institute for Journalism
Where do young journalists and politicians stand in life? How mindful and compassionate do they treat themselves, their bodies and their surroundings? What insecurities do they feel in the professional context and how do they react to them? What impact does treating yourself with mindfulness and compassion have on understanding your profession? And last but not least: Can mindfulness journalism exist? Or even a mindfulness policy? Or: what could characterize mindfulness journalism or mindfulness politics?
A scientific long-term study should provide information on this. Discussions are planned with young journalists and politicians, in which the procedure will be open-ended and deliberately non-standard. In each case with the aim of getting to know the interlocutor in depth. With their ideals, their feelings, their motivations. At work, but also in life in general. The conversations are structured in such a way that a kind of introspection takes place through honest and sincere sharing. The journalists and politicians are asked, for example:
- Why did you choose this training, this path?
- What is important to you right now?
- Which values control your individual orientation?
- Do you feel self-determined or were there perhaps expectations of others that you followed?
- Are you aware of any patterns and imprints (stable learned stimulus-reaction processes) that could play a role in your decisions?
- To whom do you feel responsible and are you aware of the effects of your thinking and behavior?
- How are you generally doing as a person and how do you feel?
The sum total of the conversations gives us mindfulness profiles and fields that we can pay particular attention to in the respective profession. Through the special form of survey, we want to observe whether, in addition to the internal examination and reflection, the survey itself has an effect, towards a mindful journalism and a mindful policy. Every year we follow the development of the protagonists in order to be able to trace changes through social, professional or private events.
The project is also accompanied photographically by producing an illustrated book of the portraits of the interviewees and documenting their changes over the years.
PARTNERS
Institute for Journalism
Technical university Dortmund
THEME
Mindfulness and compassion in the training of journalists and politicians
YEAR
2021
