Dr Savyasaachi Jain

Overview

In my academic role as Reader at JOMEC, I draw upon a career spanning print and television journalism, documentary filmmaking and providing training to media practitioners internationally. My journey into academics began as a doctoral student at the University of Westminster (London) researching the applicability and suitability of Western models for understanding the behaviour of global media systems. While pursuing my PhD, I began teaching at Swansea University, where I led the Erasmus Mundus MA programme in Journalism, Media and Globalisation (War and Conflict specialism). At JOMEC, I teach on the MA International Journalism (MAIJ) and MA Digital Documentary (MADD) courses. Apart from leading the documentary pathway on MAIJ, I specialise in guiding students in developing the concepts for their longer journalistic projects, including their showpiece Master’s project/ dissertation.

I am currently engaged in an interdisciplinary applied research project, working with colleagues in the School of Computer Science and Informatics to develop a camerawork simulator, an online tool for teaching creative decision-making skills to students of documentary and visual journalism. We have obtained multiple rounds of funding from JOMEC, the Research Wales Innovation Fund, and the research councils AHRC and EHRC, to support us as we develop and refine prototypes and explore pathways to making this tool widely available to teachers and students wherever they may be.   

As a researcher, I am particularly interested in international media systems, Indian media, the standards and conceptual skills of high-quality journalism, and journalism and democracy, and will consider PhDs applications in these areas.

I am or have been a consultant to several UN organisations (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and UNDRR) as well as intergovernmental and international organisations such as the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, Caribbean Broadcasting Union, Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and The Thomson Foundation. My work for these organisations includes developing online courses, manuals and handbooks, designing and delivering large training programmes, supervising international documentary co-productions and conducting specialist workshops for journalists and programme makers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Caribbean, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkmenistan, UK and Vietnam.