Technological skills demanded in job postings for journalism graduates in Spain

Abstract

Due to the digitalisation of communication-related productive sectors (journalism, advertising, audiovisual creation, corporate and strategic communications, etc.), having up-todate technological skills is crucial for joining and remaining in the labour market. In this study, the technological skills demanded from Journalism graduates in Spain by potential employers are analysed using a sample (n=433) of job postings aimed at such graduates on the specialist online platforms LinkedIn and Infojobs. The results show that the labour market available to Journalism graduates is broadly shared with graduates in other disciplines (especially Advertising and Public Relations, and Marketing). Only about 8% of the job postings analysed came from media outlets. Almost 70% were addressed to graduates in Journalism or other graduates in the field of communication and marketing, and only about 20% demanded functions connected with the production of journalistic information. Regarding the technological skills sought, about 60% of the job postings demanded knowledge of at least one specific technological tool, mainly for the tasks of graphic design, layout and image editing; data processing; web content design and management; text editing and presentations; web analytics; and social media. The results suggest that the variety of technological tools used in Journalism university programme teaching will need to be increased in order to facilitate graduate employability.