Initiatives

JEX is on a mission to experiment

Journalism studies is a maturing field in need of fresh perspectives, novel data, theoretical clarity, multidisciplinary collaboration, and new innovations. Our initiatives and research-creation projects flow from the interests of our researchers and collaborators and we are always looking to start a new experiment!

Projected Futures is an award-winning experiential summer school for those wanting to rethink how science is communicated with society. Participants are exposed to the foundations of evidence-based science journalism and then asked to experiment to create new forms of scientific storytelling. The school runs each summer.

Led by professor Aphrodite Salas, “Indigenous Clean Energy Sovereignty: Mapping a Way forward with Cogenerative Journalism” focuses on the clean energy sovereignty journeys of Indigenous communities in the land known as Canada.

This research initiative seeks to define and develop a new model of collaborative journalism by creating research-creation journalism and new teaching methods based on a more holistic model of working with Indigenous peoples and communities. The project forms part of Volt-Age.

Led by professor Amélie Daoust-Boisvert, Carbon Paper (Papier Carbone in French), is a bilingual online newsletter that tracks climate news across the country.

The initiative provides a comprehensive collection of climate stories in French and English, giving more visibility to good climate journalism.

The project forms part of an interest in studying climate journalism for improvement and innovation.

Led by Professor Andrea Hunter, the Inclusive Journalism project studies a new form of inclusive, dialogic journalism that demonstrates limitations with how poverty and immigration are covered in the mainstream news media.

The project asks researchers and students to directly engage with community members who have long been excluded from journalistic narratives. People from these communities are on occasion spoken with, but mostly about, and almost never to.

The project asks – how could journalism better serve the information needs of these populations?

The Journalism Research Symposium is a yearly JEX initiative to gather graduate students to discuss new developments in the field of journalism and related disciplines. JRS involves a call for abstracts and includes student, expert and JEX member presentations on their emerging research and ideas. The initiative seeks to spark creativity and innovation related to the future of journalism.

The Centre for Journalism Experimentation is involved with various other projects beyond those mentioned above that shed light on both the current and future state of journalism. The projects cover such topics as ethics, mediating exclusion through journalism and employing innovative conciliatory practices in the context of documenting Indigenous clean energy initiatives