BU Journalism Dept holds alumni meet

Berhampur: The Department of Journalism and Mass Commu-nication, Berhampur University, organised the Golden Jubilee celebration, first alumni meet and a conference at the Biju Patnaik Auditorium on Bhanja Bihar campus on Satur-day. Alumni gathered at their alma mater, went down memory lane and looked forward to new interactions.

The establishment of the Department in 1974 marked the be-ginning of Journalism education in Odisha. It offered teaching for Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and in 1977 nomenclature was changed to Bachelor of Journalism & Mass Communica-tion. Further, the Master’s degree course MJMC was intro-duced in 1986. The two-year course was restructured in 2000 and the semester system of examination as per UGC guide-lines was introduced in 2002.

The proceedings began with a conference titled ‘Media at Crossroads: Identity, Inclusion and Representation in the Digital Age’ in which the speakers highlighted the role of media and new avenue of journalism.

Former MP and Media Baron of Odisha Soumya Ranjan Pat-naik, who attended the conference as the chief guest, termed Press as the ‘Third Eye’ instead of the ‘Fourth Pillar of Democ-racy’. Prof B P Sanjay of Manipal University spoke on digital media.

News sites and news aggregators began appearing in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Web logs, now called blogs, became an immensely popular way for ordinary citizens to update the world about their lives and views.

In the last decade, social networking sites like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook ushered in the era of social media, he said.