Graduates of journalism and mass communication programs in the United States had difficulty finding work in 2003 and 2004, and those who did find work received lower salaries and poorer benefits packages than did graduates a year earlier.

Despite the weak market, or maybe because of it, those journalism and mass communication graduates who found work were relatively satisfied with what they were doing and committed to the organizations that employed them.

These are some of the key findings of the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates, housed in the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia. The Cox Center is a unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Cox Center Director Dr. Lee B. Becker and Assistant Director Dr. Tudor Vlad released the findings of the survey of journalism and mass communication graduates at the conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), meeting August 4-7 in Toronto, Canada.

Cox Center researchers also released the preliminary results of the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments, a companion survey to the graduate survey also conducted in the Cox Center. The survey found that the 463 journalism and mass communication programs around the country enrolled 204,268 students in the autumn of 2003, up 5% from a year earlier. The final report will be released in the autumn of 2004.

The research team also released the findings of a separate study of enrollments in doctoral programs in the broad field of communication, showing an increase in enrollments of 18% from a year earlier, and a study assessing the impact of a video message designed to increase enrollments of racial and ethnic minorities in those doctoral programs.

Click here for the report from the graduate survey.

Click here for the report on doctoral programs.

Click here for the report on the video recruiting message.