Professional Culture of Future Mass Media Specialists: Theoretical and Practical Experience

Abstract

The article discussed the process of future mass media specialists' professional culture development. It outlined the aspects of professional culture and defined its essential functions for the media experts' work. The paper analyzed the critical principles of the model development that help form future media specialists' professional culture. The author presented the practical experience of educating students in journalism major at the Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University. The paper noticed that forming the professional culture of future mass-media specialists is a systematic process involving developing personal qualities and considering all professional tasks, requirements, and their implementation through forms and methods. The article argued that the process of future mass media specialists' professional culture should be considered at different levels of development. The initial level is conditionally characterized as information, where the degree of formation of the system of professional knowledge still needs to be more profound; professional abilities are in the formation stage.
 Furthermore, professional knowledge and skills are sufficiently formed at the intermediate level, but the ability to quickly solve production problems is developed at the level of standards. Finally, the higher level of professional culture forming is characterized by a broad professional outlook, a large amount of professional knowledge, interests, skills, a creative understanding of the production situation as a problem, and the ability to solve it efficiently, creatively, and effectively. To achieve a positive result in shaping the professional culture of the future mass media specialist, it is necessary to develop at the state level the concept of forming the professional culture of mass media professionals and create a model of their activities. Specific examples have shown that the professional culture of future mass media professionals should not be simplified into a system of specialized, highly professional knowledge and skills. The article emphasized that, within the framework of educational and journalistic activities, it is essential to create a system of conditions and means necessary for the effective formation and professional culture of the future mass media specialist improvement at the government level.