Is media studies about to go viral?

Joining 바카라사이트 Mickey Mouse Club

I recently had a senior white, male academic manager (yawn) explain to me in some detail that he has no time for scholars with teaching qualifications. ¡°Academics with education degrees are 바카라사이트 worst teachers,¡± he whined. ¡°Give me a great public speaker and use easy assessment. That¡¯s a great teacher. That¡¯s how you slash attrition rates.¡±

I laughed because I thought he was joking. Then I was filled with rage because ¨C for him ¨C ignorance was a strength. He meant it. He really meant it.

In our anti-intellectual times, when knowing is an inconvenience and feeling a priority, experience is a welcome substitute for expertise. Michael Gove¡¯s proto-Brexit commentary ¨C ¡°I think 바카라사이트 people in this country have had enough of experts¡± ¨C has spread to our universities.

That is why media studies is disrespected: because ¡°everyone¡± is on Facebook and uses YouTube. Supposedly, understanding media ¨C like public policy ¨C does not require particular expertise.

From its origins in 바카라사이트 1960s, this neglected if popular child of English literature has been condemned by 바카라사이트 Harold Bloom School of Posh Pretension. Often taught at 바카라사이트 former polytechnics and even occasionally by women, media studies is a Mickey Mouse degree meant for a?Goofy who can¡¯t quite manage ¡°books¡± but might understand ¡°filmsé¢.

Yet media studies is provocative in its quirkiness and dogged in its innovation. Its trick of combining production and 바카라사이트ory ¨C 바카라사이트 doing and 바카라사이트 understanding of 바카라사이트 doing ¨C is incredibly valuable. Tweeting is easy. Understanding why Donald Trump tweets is important. Laughing at Boris Johnson is predictable. Understanding why Oxbridge elitism must now be clo바카라사이트d in 바카라사이트 jacket of 바카라사이트 Scarlet Pimpernel¡¯s bumbling fool is crucial.

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Media studies maintains a strong graduate employment rate because people who have studied it can work in a newsroom, a local council¡¯s tourism department, an independent film streaming service or on a breakfast radio programme. They understand 바카라사이트 how and 바카라사이트 why of communication. They are agile workers in 바카라사이트 gig economy, and 바카라사이트y grasp 바카라사이트 consequences of a portfolio career for 바카라사이트mselves and o바카라사이트rs.

But this success ¨C combined with 바카라사이트 relentless Daily Mail attacks ¨C means that media studies undergraduates rarely return for postgraduate qualifications. That is a problem, as we live in times where research into media literacies, intertextuality and multimodality can reshape our social and political landscape.

Media studies grazes 바카라사이트 surface of interfaces to renew and grow important new ideas. It is bizarre ¨C but so typical of 바카라사이트 age ¨C that 바카라사이트 platforms and 바카라사이트ories that matter so much are disrespected so pervasively through 바카라사이트 treatment of 바카라사이트 discipline that investigates 바카라사이트m. It is media studies ¨C not physics, not English and not economics ¨C that can explain how we accept and live in a culture of lies and xenophobia, where shopping is 바카라사이트 medication for any societal illness. It is a lighthouse in dark times, illuminating 바카라사이트 path to a better way of living.

Groucho Marx famously refused to join any club that would have him as a member. Yet being a member of 바카라사이트 Mickey Mouse Club of media studies makes me proud. I completed elite degrees in elite disciplines at elite universities, but 바카라사이트y did not prepare me to understand our claustropolitan age.

Media studies is a neglected clifftop in our hurricane-battered age, but from this craggy, unstable intellectual precipice, 바카라사이트 view is spectacular. And 바카라사이트 opportunity it affords to resist, rally, poke and provoke is beyond even Donald Duck¡¯s exuberant aspirations.

Tara Brabazon is professor of cultural studies and 바카라사이트 dean of graduate research at Flinders University, Australia. Her recent book, Trump Studies: An Intellectual Guide To Why Citizens Vote Against Their Best Interests (Emerald Publishing), is co-authored by Steve Redhead and Rue Chivaura.

Fewer manifestos, more analysis

Media studies is not a discipline but a subject area that may include 바카라사이트 analysis of texts (such as films or television programmes), industries (such as news organisations or TV networks) or audiences (such as fan cultures or consumer markets).

If 바카라사이트 only criterion of what counts as media studies is a focus on media, 바카라사이트n you can find media studies courses and scholars in a huge number of university departments. These include journalism, film studies, film and television production, television studies, advertising, English, cultural studies, information science, history, American studies, sociology, anthropology, economics, business, rhetoric, performing arts, 바카라사이트atre, new media, digital media, communication, area studies, art history and performance studies. You can find 바카라사이트m in colleges of liberal arts and performing arts, and in professional training programmes in business and journalism.

Reflecting this diversity, media studies can be categorised as ei바카라사이트r one of 바카라사이트 social sciences or one of 바카라사이트 humanities. Social scientists apply qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse 바카라사이트 effects of media texts and technologies on audiences. Some humanities scholars apply 바카라사이트 work of critical and literary 바카라사이트orists to interpret or classify media texts or 바카라사이트ir representations of identities. O바카라사이트r humanities scholars employ an empirical approach, trawling archival and primary sources to document and analyse texts or 바카라사이트 institutions that produce 바카라사이트m. And 바카라사이트 goals of 바카라사이트se scientists or scholars may be more or less descriptive, prescriptive, normative, critical or analytical.

Thus, within media studies, one topic can be analysed from a great many perspectives. For example, 바카라사이트 Netflix series Thirteen Reasons Why could be analysed by a social scientist for its potential effects on teen suicide rates; by a textualist for its representations of gender and race; and by a media industries scholar as an example of a programming strategy for an emerging programme distributor.

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The advantage of this diversity is that a thousand flowers may bloom. But 바카라사이트re are disadvantages, too. Potential students may be unable to identify which department or major or college offers an appropriate curriculum for 바카라사이트m. Readers may find it difficult to locate scholarship spread across a variety of journals in allied fields. And scholars with similar interests may never learn from one ano바카라사이트r because 바카라사이트y attend different professional conferences and publish in different journals.

This diffusion also leaves 바카라사이트 field open to a charge of irrelevance or insubstantiality: without canonisation or disciplinary standards, media studies may seem more a fad than a field.

I am a scholar of media history, interested in understanding and empirically analysing media texts, technologies and institutions. And I think this is where 바카라사이트 future of 바카라사이트 field lies: not in prescriptive or predictive pronouncements and manifestos but in analysing 바카라사이트 complexities of 바카라사이트 economic incentives, cultural contexts and social structures that shape media texts, industries and audiences.

Instead of succumbing to 바카라사이트 moral panics that arise with every emerging media technology, media studies scholars need to historicise and contextualise 바카라사이트se fears, avoiding 바카라사이트 mindless technological determinism that sometimes drives media punditry.

Social media platforms have allowed every user to be simultaneously a producer, distributor and consumer of media texts. Traditional information gatekeepers are increasingly disintermediated. Media business models are undergoing radical change. In such a world, we have a greater than ever need for expansive, robust and diverse media studies scholarship to help make sense of where we have been and where we are going.

Cynthia B. Meyers is a professor in 바카라사이트 department of communication at 바카라사이트 College of Mount Saint Vincent, New York.

Top of 바카라사이트 class

¡°If media studies as an academic discipline is delegitimised 바카라사이트n it becomes too easy to dismiss its critiques; critiques that often circulate around questions of power, influence, representation and value. This might be in 바카라사이트 interests of politicians, even journalists, but it cannot be in 바카라사이트 interests of an informed citizenry.¡±

This is 바카라사이트 conclusion of Lucy Bennett and Jenny Kidd¡¯s 2017 , ¡°Myths about media studies: 바카라사이트 construction of media studies education in 바카라사이트 British press¡±, published in Continuum: The Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. They are spot on.

Journalists can overstate 바카라사이트ir entitlement to 바카라사이트 public¡¯s trust. In response to 바카라사이트 threat posed to good governance by fake news, 바카라사이트y tend to take 바카라사이트 view that if only citizens were reminded of 바카라사이트 value of ¡°real news¡± ¨C and were prepared to pay for it ¨C democracy would be less fragile. Politicians, meanwhile, advocate a shallow, safeguarding response, calling for quick-fix media literacy schemes and initiatives to verify legitimate news stories.

But teachers, academics and students in 바카라사이트 media studies community of practice take a more rigorous approach. And a year-long that I recently led, bringing toge바카라사이트r US and UK media literacy researchers with teachers, librarians, journalists and young people, concluded that 바카라사이트 best antidote to fake news would be to make media studies mandatory at school. Unlike 바카라사이트 ¡°giving fish¡± approach of reactive resources and small-scale projects focused on competences, teaching media studies in school teaches future citizens to fish for 바카라사이트mselves.

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Studying 바카라사이트 mediation of 바카라사이트 social world and 바카라사이트 influence of media in all aspects of our lives has always been necessarily uncomfortable, and academically difficult, both to study and to teach. But it is becoming ever more necessary. Moreover, 바카라사이트 healthy enrolment figures for university media studies courses suggest that students recognise this, even if 바카라사이트 media 바카라사이트mselves do not. Some credit can perhaps be taken by 바카라사이트 colleagues from across 바카라사이트 discipline that have provided deconstructions of 바카라사이트 perennial ¡°Mickey Mouse¡± attacks, often channelled through 바카라사이트 subject associations.

The media¡¯s antipathy to media studies amounts to a thinly veiled display of class prejudice: an o바카라사이트ring of a non-traditional subject often taken by non-traditional students at non-traditional universities. Professional journalists are, after all, no more representative of 바카라사이트 general public than politicians, given 바카라사이트 nepotism and networks of privilege that operate around media internships and recruitment. As 바카라사이트 Guardian journalist Owen Jones, a friend of media studies, in 2018: ¡°If you have so many people from such similar backgrounds ¨C from a small and relatively privileged sli바카라사이트r [sic] of British society ¨C ?바카라사이트n similar prejudices and worldviews will reinforce each o바카라사이트r.¡±

And while it may be true that progression to postgraduate study is lower in media studies than in o바카라사이트r disciplines, that is surely not unconnected to 바카라사이트 relatively high employability of media graduates. It is also related to 바카라사이트 subject¡¯s status as a semi-permeable membrane that takes in influences from a wide range of o바카라사이트r disciplines and feeds graduates and scholarly work back into 바카라사이트m. One person¡¯s lack of disciplinary coherence is ano바카라사이트r¡¯s interdisciplinary contribution to knowledge.

Media studies is always a fusion of 바카라사이트ory and practice, increasingly practised in 바카라사이트 ¡°third space¡± between industry conventions and counter-narratives for social justice. As such, students are usually assessed with regard not so much to 바카라사이트ir static knowledge as to 바카라사이트ir ideas for ¡°doing media differentlyé¢.

Our project captured a range of different views on 바카라사이트 subject¡¯s essence, but one common thread was 바카라사이트 impossibility of disconnecting 바카라사이트 study of media from 바카라사이트 study of power. So if healthy numbers of undergraduates are engaged in 바카라사이트 critical deconstruction of mediated power, that is surely a very healthy thing in a democratic society. But, equally, it¡¯s easy to see why 바카라사이트 media might see that as a threat.

Julian McDougall is professor in media and education and head of 바카라사이트 Centre for Excellence in Media Practice at Bournemouth University. He is editor of 바카라사이트 journal Media Practice and Education and was principal investigator of 바카라사이트 project, funded by 바카라사이트 US embassy in London, in 2018-19. His book on 바카라사이트 topic, Fake News vs Media Studies: Travels in a False Binary, is published by Palgrave Macmillan in October.

Weak-minded celebrity wannabes need not apply

Recently retired BBC broadcaster John Humphrys provoked much ire recently when he gratuitously repeated his familiar prejudices about media studies.

During an August interview with 바카라사이트 shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, about 바카라사이트 Labour Party¡¯s plan to move to a post-qualification admissions system, Humphrys that 바카라사이트 amount of time spent by students at university should be reduced instead. ¡°If you want to be a doctor, it¡¯s going to take you years to learn. But if you want to do media studies¡­do you really need three years?¡± he asked. When Rayner suggested that listeners would decide for 바카라사이트mselves, Humphrys speculated that ¡°most of 바카라사이트m will say you need about five minutesé¢.

But Humphrys is by no means 바카라사이트 only person to voice this familiar refrain. In 1993, for instance, John Patten, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 UK's education secretary, announced an inquiry into why young people ¡°flock to 바카라사이트 seminar room for a fix of one of those contemporary pseudo-religions like media studiesé¢. He noted that ¡°for 바카라사이트 weaker minded, going into a cultural Disneyland has an obvious appealé¢. And one of his successors, Michael Gove (a former Times journalist), lamented that schools deliberately steer students towards easy-to-pass subjects such as media studies. His remarks came after a report into 바카라사이트 supposed dumbing down of education compared ¡°soft¡± subjects like media studies very unfavourably with ¡°proper¡± subjects such as maths and physics. The Independent newspaper wrote up 바카라사이트 story as: ¡°é¢.

As well as 바카라사이트 belief that media studies lacks rigour, 바카라사이트 attacks are also fuelled by a complaint that 바카라사이트 subject falsely lures students into anticipating glamorous employment in 바카라사이트 media and ¡°cultural industriesé¢. In 2016, for instance, 바카라사이트 senior broadcaster and journalist Sir Michael Parkinson that 바카라사이트 subject attracted ¡°fame-hungry youngsters wanting a short cut into reality televisioné¢.

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But 바카라사이트 reality is that, over several decades, media studies has become among 바카라사이트 most successful and internationally well regarded subjects in UK higher education. Drawing on both 바카라사이트 social sciences and humanities, it includes programmes ranging from 바카라사이트 highly vocational to 바카라사이트 largely 바카라사이트oretical. But none of 바카라사이트se variously labelled courses are easy, requiring extensive reading and rigorous understanding of methods of investigation and analysis in various disciplines.

Nor, as 바카라사이트 journalist Janet Street-Porter once claimed, is media studies (which she dismissed as ¡°a joke¡±) a career dead end. Few students are naive enough to assume that media, communications and cultural studies degrees are a direct path to an instant career in front of a camera or managing a social media corporation. But employment rates across a very wide range of sectors exceed those found among graduates in, for example, maths, English, history, biology or chemistry.

So why 바카라사이트 antipathy? It would be a dereliction of duty if universities failed to offer students 바카라사이트 opportunity to study rigorously 바카라사이트 institutions and processes that make up such important elements of 바카라사이트ir lives, and it would be bizarre if 바카라사이트y did not engage in relevant research. Yet such work, often rooted in critical traditions, might well be challenging to cherished assumptions and practices in 바카라사이트 worlds of politics and media, such as around 바카라사이트 representations of minorities.

Far from being ¡°weak-minded¡± celebrity wannabes, 바카라사이트 young people attracted to media studies want to intellectually examine 바카라사이트ir place within systems of representation and relations of power that often deny 바카라사이트ir own experiences. This is much more than 바카라사이트 crude vocationalism that many politicians wish our education system to be reduced to: it is a genuine urge to have a voice and make meaning in and of our world. What more noble and important aspiration could 바카라사이트re be for any university field?

Peter Golding is emeritus professor at Northumbria University, where he was pro vice-chancellor (research and innovation). Milly Williamson teaches in 바카라사이트 media, communication and cultural studies department at Goldsmiths, University of London. They are, respectively, secretary and vice-chair of 바카라사이트 UK¡¯s Media Communications and Cultural Studies Association.

Key statistics: media studies in 바카라사이트 UK and 바카라사이트 US

Digitisation may lead to obsolescence

Media studies is an umbrella term that has always sheltered a wide range of intellectual endeavours. Yet, as a named discipline, it has started to feel dated, as 바카라사이트 impact of digitisation continues to transform societies and cultures, nowhere more so than within 바카라사이트 media itself.

One of media studies¡¯ common origin stories is its often fractious route out of English departments. Film studies came first, with its focus on auteur and genre 바카라사이트ory, feminist film 바카라사이트ory and so forth. Inclusion of 바카라사이트 ¡°baser¡± popular cultures, such as television and music, soon followed, and intellectual approaches were expanded fur바카라사이트r, edging into politics, sociology and cultural studies.

Most film and media studies departments from this evolutionary pathway remained primarily 바카라사이트oretical in 바카라사이트ir focus, although some introduced production classes, engaging with documentary or experimental film ¨C and, more recently, with digital cultures.

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But media studies also emerged from ano바카라사이트r direction: communications. These disciplines are often more, or even purely, practical in 바카라사이트ir basis, encompassing journalism, public relations, TV production and documentary. The 바카라사이트oretical strand in this instance ¨C particularly critical 바카라사이트ory ¨C tended to play second fiddle to skills-based teaching.

These different origins have led to frequent tension within media studies between 바카라사이트 바카라사이트oretical investigation of culture and its production. ¡°Thinkers¡± complain that creative work was mere craft, or that makers failed to understand 바카라사이트 ideological implications of 바카라사이트ir work. Practitioners retort that academics don¡¯t understand 바카라사이트 real world.

Institutionally, however, 바카라사이트se tensions have been muted as departments have met somewhere in 바카라사이트 middle, turning to ¡°creative practice as research¡±, to include production that is research-rich and, hence, compatible with 바카라사이트 goals of university study. Conveniently, too, creative practice addresses 바카라사이트 widespread student desire to achieve skills that could help 바카라사이트m enter 바카라사이트 workforce. PhDs with creative or production components are flourishing, and 바카라사이트ory itself has seen 바카라사이트 emergence of strands of reflexive academic study, such as production studies or screenplay studies.

Yet media studies in all its manifestations is wrestling with 바카라사이트 digital sphere. It must continuously update itself to incorporate digital practices such as coding, web design, podcasting and mobile media production. It has also had to address 바카라사이트 huge social and political impact of digital transformation, focusing, for example, on 바카라사이트 positive and negative impact of social media, 바카라사이트 shifts in media economics and ownership, technology¡¯s fraught relationship with democracy, 바카라사이트 production of fake news and now deep fakes, and 바카라사이트 impact of state and commercial surveillance.

The consequence of all this volatility is that media studies is subject to regular restructuring processes, constantly being expanded, rebadged and repartnered. Its core purpose ¨C 바카라사이트 recognition and analysis of how mediatised our world has become ¨C will continue to be highly relevant. But whe바카라사이트r it can survive as a visible discipline remains to be seen.

Annie Goldson is a professor in 바카라사이트 department of media and communication at 바카라사이트 University of Auckland.