ABSTRACT
This chapter compares Australian journalism students’ ambitions and professional perceptions of themselves (akin to their personal “identities”) in the period 2006-2008 with the journalism employment places concurrently available in Australia. This allows us to advance suggestions about journalism formation and about which model-traditional trade-based apprentice models which focus on “practice” or university-based models leading to graduate entry which focus on theory or a combination of both-best prepares candidates for the fl exible, independent, and competitive journalism working environment which has emerged worldwide. Implications are suggested for the wider sector of media communications practices, including the previously separate sectors of public relations and advertising. Students’ self-perceptions and identities, coupled with their perceptions and expectations of the employment market they intend to enter, are central to their motivations to undertake journalism studies and thereafter to persist and achieve good grades.
