| Abstract: | The training of journalists in a university context must fulfil a twofold requirement, as it unavoidably has to integrate theory and practice, academic study and practical application—this is the central didactic challenge. There is no doubt, however, that the concepts of theory and practice are employed in a diffuse way in the current debates both within the relevant academic fields and elsewhere. The present article seeks to sketch out the difficulties, which will inescapably arise in any attempt to integrate academic study and practical application within a university, and it relates these difficulties to specific fundamental problems (the problem of definition, the problem of reputation and recognition, the problem of concretisation, etc.). In addition, the author demonstrates by results from his own project work how this integration of theory and practice may be successfully accomplished. The essential purpose of the article is to initiate a didactic debate that meets the demands of the university as well as the requirements of professional practice in equal measure. |
