Author: Hart, Andrew.

Title: Global Media: Local Educational Responses.

Source: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~mec/MECWEB/GlobalMedia.pdf [2003-06-11] Southampton 1997.

Publisher: Research and Graduate School of Education.

Published with kind permission of the publisher.

Andrew Hart

GLOBAL MEDIA: LOCAL EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on some of the research problems and methods of the international Models of Media Education project. The project, based on the original Models of Media Education project begun in England in 1992, was carried out in 6 English-speaking countries in four continents. It is the first international study in the English-speaking world on how Media is taught to 14-16 yearold students. It contextualises and analyses detailed case teaching methods to enable comparative analysis of Media teaching paradigms and practices in different cultures through structured indepth interviews and systematic classroom observation.

The research explores different models of Media Education in practice, and illuminates a range of educational concerns, goals and classroom practices in order to define existing models in different countries more precisely and to make them more visible. It provides new perspectives on Media teaching for researchers and practitioners that will help them examine different teaching approaches and reflect on their own practices, with a view to understanding them more fully and enhancing their effectiveness in the classroom.

The project identified a number of economic, cultural, social and political variables which seem to encourage or repress the development of Media Education in different national contexts. A rich variety of forms and practices was found within three basic paradigms which have been identified by previous writers and researchers. At the same time, several ‘structured absences’ were discovered. There was a recurrent lack of attention to: classroom interaction and dialogue about the media; a lack of space for young people’s own media experience and knowledge; few opportunities for active involvement in the social production of texts; an avoidance of teaching in context through engagement with media processes and technologies; infrequent engagement with political issues or learning about media institutions. Although school policies and managerial support were found to be important variables, the major factor in determining the teaching processes and strategies of English\Media teachers seems to be autobiographical and necessarily, therefore, intimately related to their own developing experiences of media.

NOTE

The paper is based on parts of the book Teaching the Media: International Perspectives (1998) Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey. A companion paper on the main findings of the project was also presented at ECER in the International Models of Media Education Symposium in 1997.

1. INTRODUCTION

This is a time of uncertainty in English teaching, especially in some of its newer forms, such as Media Education and Information Technology. New demands and new technologies are being introduced into curricula and classrooms at such a pace that few teachers of English can claim to be coping with them. But what is a problem for many is also an opportunity for some. One view of the prospects for innovation within English teaching has been offered by Richards, with appropriate hesitancy:

The practice of media education moves teachers into a more radically unsettled curricular space than that provided by most English teaching. The tensions and conflicts between popular discourses and between discourses arising from media education itself are productive of an uncertain and uneven, but also potentially innovative, struggle. The struggle is to conceive of a more flexible practice, attentive to the forms and the detail of the emergent and disparate cultures in which school students locate themselves. The effort of teaching, and of sustaining the discursive coherence and credibility of media education, involves teachers in some work upon themselves, drawing on experiences of change and possibility in the past, but also necessarily re-thinking the more settled features of their own formation as teachers of English. (Richards, 1998, p. 150)

Some English teachers might object to the very language in which this perspective is put, as well as to its basic propositions. But the recurrence of words like ‘discourse’, ‘discursive’ and ‘struggle’, the endlessly additive phrasing and complexity of syntax are not simply markers of a particular form of academic jargon. They also function as a powerful expression of the struggle which the writer/teacher/researcher is himself undergoing.Many English Departments are currently experiencing high levels of anxiety. They feel unsure of their roles in schools, reluctant to take initiatives and powerless to defend their present positions. Some have found their time with classes cut to make way for ‘new National Curriculum demands’ in other subjects. Yet, with barely half an hour a day with each class, they feel themselves to be the butt of most of the government and newspaper criticism of declining standards.

Media Education occupies an ambivalent position within English. Although some English teachers have always seen it as central to their work, many approach it nervously, fearing that it will be viewed as further evidence that they are not concerned with ‘basics’ These teachers feel obliged to justify excursions into the media in terms of the written (i.e. essay) work they produce. They are inclined to be apologetic, mistrusting the evident enjoyment of their classes and consequently doing less than justice to the many modes of communication the media open up for them.

There is a tension between the desire to assert the value of Literature and the growing awareness of the centrality of the media to most people’s lives; a tension made worse by the recent years of debate over the National Curriculum. Few English teachers seem to view the National Curriculum as an enabling document. To most it merely adds to current practice a demand for assessments (characterised repeatedly as putting ticks in boxes), which many English teachers find alien to themselves and inimical to their relationships with children.

This paper suggests that there is widespread empirical evidence to support Richards’ view of a crisis of confidence in English-teaching classrooms. It argues that this crisis is particularly acute where English teachers are attempting to incorporate Media teaching into their practice, often with inadequate training, experience or support, and often without clear ideas about purposes and outcomes.

In addition to a general crisis in confidence, English\Media teachers are also challenged by the development of new media technologies, new media forms and new institutional structures. The spread of the Internet has accelerated the more general process of ‘mediatization’of experience which Mattelart has analysed (Mattelart, 1991, p. 210). This ‘mediatization’ is not only enlarging and altering our vocabulary: it has already begun to affect the actual forms of everyday communication and interaction.

Media culture has expanded massively over recent decades. There is a range of new media: cable and satellite TV, home computers, video recorders and camcorders, new ‘on-line’ interactive services, video discs and other consumer-oriented interactive software. There is also a growing interpenetration of media, as genres, themes and contents flow from one to another with increasing ease as a result of the movement from analogue to digital coding and the consolidation of communications conglomerates. We are entering an age of multimedia in the sense of a new, increasingly enveloping and involving media environment which is experienced as an interconnected whole.

Technological and statutory developments have led to significant changes in the ways in which young people interact with the media. Various forms of deregulation have led to the increasing availability of specialist and streamed services which no longer fit the traditional models of broadcasting. Technological developments have facilitated increasingly creative interactions with media artefacts. These practices include ‘scratch’ video, the use of ‘dub’ and mixing techniques in live and recorded music and the reworking of still and moving images through digital manipulation.

At the same time, computer technology has increased the opportunities for relatively sophisticated production in sound and still and moving images. Increasingly, these are distributed through the Internet, thereby changing the relationships between young people and commercial media industries. Indeed, the development of broad-band networks which abolish the ‘tyranny of distance’ and allow a continual, interactive flow of cultural productions, information, experience, and expertise of all kinds, is widely seen as the pivotal innovation in the emerging array of ‘new media’.

However, increasing use of media technology in formal education does not necessarily mean an increased understanding of the processes of communication and learning. Nor does the increasing usage of media technology in domestic contexts entail greater understanding of public media. Paradoxically, the correlation between media usage and media understanding may be an inverse one, as Marshall McLuhan hinted in his assertion that we “look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967, pp. 74-5). Like science fiction writers, we seem chained for ever to re-presenting the past, even when we wish to address the future.

While media ownership, production and distribution have become increasingly inter-nationalised and even globalised, educational responses have not kept pace with these developments in either scope or appropriateness. There is a dislocation between the accelerated pace of development in information and communication technology (which, it is currently estimated, doubles in power and halves in cost every eighteen months) and the sluggish conservatism of educational systems. The micro-interactions of the classroom seem strangely detached from macro-developments in technology and culture. This problem will not be overcome simply by increased access to new information and communication technologies. It requires an overhaul of educational curricula and methods.

2. CURRICULUM CONTEXTS FOR MEDIA TEACHING

The curriculum contexts in which the research originally took place are outlined in detail elsewhere (Hart, 1997) and the debates about subject location and cross-curricular status can be followed in earlier discussions (Buckingham, 1990a, 1990b; Hart, 1992). Here there is only space to note that the English and Northern Ireland studies were carried out under the Cox-based 1990-1995 curriculum for compulsory schooling (DES 1990). The Cox Report’s version of five main approaches to the teaching of English has been widely circulated and very influential. It also provided a useful general framework for the original research.

Table 1: Approaches to English teaching

A „personal growth“ view focuses on the child: it emphasises the relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the role of literature in developing children’s imaginative and aesthetic lives.

A „cross-curricular“ view focuses on the school: it emphasises that all teachers (of English and of other subjects) have a responsibility to help children with the language demands of different subjects on the school curriculum: otherwise areas of the curriculum may be closed to them. In England, English is different from other school subjects, in that it is both a subject and a medium of instruction for other subjects.

An „adult needs“ view focuses on communication outside the school: it emphasises the responsibility of English teachers to prepare children for the language demands of adult life, including the workplace, in a fast-changing world. Children need to learn to deal with the day-to-day demands of spoken language and of print; they also need to be able to write clearly, appropriately and effectively.

A „cultural heritage“ view emphasises the responsibility of schools to lead children to an appreciation of those works of literature that have been widely regarded as amongst the finest in the language.

A „cultural analysis“ view emphasises the role of English in helping children towards a critical understanding of the world and cultural environment in which they live. Children should know about the processes by which meanings are conveyed, and about the ways in which print and other media carry values. (DES, 1989, 2.21-2.25)

3. A REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH ON MEDIA TEACHING

There has been much rhetoric but little research on Media teaching. There is a dearth of basic research, if research is seen as a process of investigation which is public, systematic, controlled and critical of its own methodological weaknesses (Cohen and Manion, 1994, pp. 4-5; 40). Most accounts to date have been concerned with arguing a case (often polemically) for Media Education or providing resources and strategies for Media teachers. As Learmonth and Sayer’s survey for the BFI notes, there is a “marked lack of objective evidence and debate about methods of teaching and learning that most effectively develop students’ skills in media education.” (Learmonth and Sayer, 1996, p. 9)

The first substantial research on Media teaching took place in the UK in the early 1970s, when the Schools Council funded an investigation into how schools were responding to the burgeoning media cultures around television and pop music, and the ways in which teenagers’ involvement was affecting their commitment to school and their educational performance (Murdock and Phelps, 1973). This large-scale survey found that 80% of teachers in (selective) grammar schools and 42% in (non-selective) comprehensive schools sampled felt that the study of the mass media had little or no legitimate claim to classroom attention. The findings were widely used and debated both in the UK and elsewhere, but in the quarter of a century since then, there have been no further detailed large-scale studies.

The rise of qualitative methods in Media and Cultural Studies research has provided much more detailed and complex accounts of young people’s media experiences and their relation to changing patterns of social division, family structures, everyday life, and personal identity. Within education, there has been a vigorous debate about the use of media in schools and about the value of Media Education. More recently, these arguments have been given added impetus by the rise of increasingly interactive media. The emergent trend of small-scale practitioner-based reflexive research offers useful insights into classroom interactions between teachers and students and between students. It also promises to make useful connections with students’ out of school media experiences and the perspectives which they bring with them to the classroom. But, for all its detail and its apparent ecological soundness in terms of classroom activity, it is one-dimensional. There are other aspects of Media Education research which also demand attention.

The table below provides an overview of relevant and significant research on Media Education practices which has been published in academic books, journals, or research reports. Much other material exists, but most of it does not fulfil the basic Cohen and Manion criteria for research, as set out above. Other means of classification of the research are possible (eg such categories as ‘polemical’ or ‘descriptive’ might be useful). At the same time, the research categories are inevitably crude and few of the researchers referred to would probably agree with these descriptions of their work. A fuller examination of some of this work is offered in Hart, 1998.

Table 2: Empirical Research on Secondary Media Education in the UK

TEACHING THE MEDIA: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

We are still lacking an adequate evidential context for such debates, because no recent study has returned to the full range of questions raised by the 1973 study and explored them systematically across an appropriate range of contrasted educational settings. We are also lacking detailed and theorised accounts of teachers’ work by other teachers. We need more sophisticated investigations of teacher biographies and the socio-cultural perspectives they bring to the classroom. At the same time, we need to find appropriate methods for tracking and understanding young people’s media interactions outside the classroom, and probably on a much larger scale than has been achieved to date.

4 THE INTERNATIONAL MODELS OF MEDIA EDUCATION PROJECT

The international study took place in six English-speaking countries. (Hart, 1998)

Table 3

Foreword: The Media Education Revolution (Len Masterman)

1. Introduction: Media Education in the Global Village (Andrew Hart)

2. Models of Media Education in England and the Secondary Curriculum for English (Andrew Hart)

3. Media Education in Northern Ireland (Jude Collins)

4. Media Education in an Emergent Democracy: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Sue Court and Costas Criticos)

5. Media Education in Western Australia (Robyn Quin)

6. Media Literacy in Massachusetts, USA (Renee Hobbs)

7. Media Education in Ontario: Generational Differences in Approach (Robert Morgan)

8. Conclusion: Paradigms Revisited (Andrew Hart)

The central research question comon to all of the six studies was:

What are teachers of English doing when they say they are doing Media Education at Key Stage 4?

5 PROBLEMS

5.1 Definitions of Media

Even within the English-speaking world there is no consensus as to what is meant by Media Education. As a recent British Film Institute (BFI) newsletter noted, there is still in England:

confusion over whether Media Education just means that the media are a convenient way of bolstering traditional English teaching, or that it entails specifically studying the media themselves. (BFI, 1993)

Even when we are clear that we are dealing with teaching and learning about the media rather than the use of media (educational technology) in the classroom, there is still much potential for confusion. (The term ‘Media Literacy’ is also often used in North America as well as Media Education.) As was noted in an earlier international collocation on Media work:

Media Education in practice is now so varied and takes place in diverse contexts such as educational or community based institutions, religious organisations or popular movements; in some situations teachers alone organise programmes, while in others professional media workers are involved. (Bazalgette, Bevort and Savino 1992: xii).

These differing approaches are related to, but not necessarily a result of, a wide range of curricular frameworks, from statutory requirements in England and Northern Ireland and Australia, to much more informal arrangements in North America and South Africa.

In this paper, the emergent term ‘Media’ is used for convenience as a simplified way of referring to both general ‘Media Education’ in English or across the curriculum and to the more specialized subject ‘Media Studies’. We may soon be able to speak as easily and confidently of ‘Media’ as we already can of ‘English’, as is already happening in some schools. Even then, however, we shall need to recognize the wide diversity of practice encompassed under the term, for example in the differing emphases which teachers and courses place on practical as against analytical work.

5.2 Representativeness

The case studies discussed here do not claim to be representative of Media teaching in any of the contexts studied. The research is partial in three senses. Firstly, it is limited in scope, since it reports on a small part of a much larger picture and focuses on a fairly narrow range of work, mainly within the teaching of English. Secondly, it is highly selective, since all the teachers in our samples were chosen to participate because of their known involvement in Media work as a part of their teaching. Thirdly, it is partial because all the contributors to the project are acknowledged advocates of the potential value of Media Education within formal schooling.

Teachers were often selected precisely because of their known involvement in English\Media teaching. In Australia and England, for example, they often had links with local (often metropolitan) Media developments. Similarly, the South African study focuses on a relatively homogenous grouping of nine white teachers and three Indian teachers, all of whom speak English as their first language. They are not representative of the English-speaking population, since less than 10% of the population as a whole are mother-tongue speakers of English and the majority of English teachers speak English as a second language. The sample is drawn from one geographical area, one of the nine new provinces of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal, which is again not representative of the ethnic and linguistic variety of the rest of South Africa. At the same time, the teachers are drawn from the previous White and Indian education authorities because it was in the Natal Education Department that Media Education first took root in the region, followed by the Indian education authority, the House of Delegates.

5.3 Methods

Because of the diversity of context and practice, this study was deliberately limited to predetermined curriculum contexts and age-groups and tried to maintain a consistency of research methods across the different contexts. We adopted a common research framework from the original Southampton study (Hart and Benson, 1993) but, in the event, we were only able to keep this framework constant in four of our six settings. We collected two distinct sets of data, through structured interviews with teachers and through systematic observation of selected lessons.

Table 4: Signpost Questions (after Bazalgette, C, 1989, p. 8)

In the USA and Canada, we were unable to establish the necessary conditions for the research framework to operate formally and had to rely on adaptations of on-going work with slightly different orientations. The Ontario research draws on particular concerns with personal biography and acquired critical discourses as potential determinants of teaching strategies, while the Massachusetts study is firmly located in a programme of Professional Development for teachers. In the latter case, it is also clear that Media teaching is not confined to the teaching of English and is emerging in various ways within other curriculum areas, frequently under the title of ‘Media Arts’. However, both North American studies provide some remarkable insights into the texture of work in their own contexts and some vital points of contact with the other studies.

Table 5: Questions for Structured Interviews

Background

What is your main teaching subject?

In what areas of English teaching are you most interested?

For how long have you been a teacher?

For how long have you been teaching Media?

Can you describe the process by which you became interested in Media Education?

Support

What percentage of your current teaching time is given to Media work?

Does this include any Media work outside English?

What proportion of KS4 pupils have experience of Media Education?

What other Media work is done in the school?

Are you able to draw on the expertise of other staff or outside agencies?

Does the school have a policy for Media Education?

Aims

What are your aims for your pupils?

How do you think pupils respond to Media work and to your approaches to it?

Is your teaching influenced by your own views about the media or society?

What would you say are the key concepts in Media Education?

Are there any concepts with which you have difficulty?

How do you see Media Education developing over the next ten years?

Methods and Content

Can you describe in general terms your approach to Media work in the classroom?

With which areas of Media work do you feel most comfortable?

Are there any topics or concepts you tend to avoid?

Which resources do you find most useful?

How far do you find it necessary to produce your own resource material?

If you were advising a teacher new to Media Education about resources what would you say?

Has your work in Media Education influenced what you teach in, or how you teach, other subjects?

Has teaching Media Education given you any surprises?

Focus

Can you describe the lesson I am going to observe?

How does it connect with previous or anticipated lessons?

How does it fit in with the remainder of the English curriculum?

What are your aims for the lesson?

Why do you consider these aims worthwhile?

Table 6: Lesson Observation Form

School__________________________________________Date__________________________________

Teacher_________________________________________Year _________________________________

Duration of Lesson________________________________Nos. Girls_______Boys__________________

Aims

Key Concepts

Resources

Introduction

Content

Method

Task/s

Conclusion

Observations

e.g. follow-up, room, furniture, equipment, noise, interruptions, response, timing.

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 Paradigms and Pedagogies

This final section offers a very brief outline of just one strand of the project’s findings, which are reported in full elsewhere (Hart, 1998) and concludes with an attempt to define Media Education research needs for the future.

We found that most of the Media Education teachers in the international project saw their work as closely related to their own values and their particular purposes in teaching. All agreed that their own teaching was informed by their views about media and society. Only one participant (in Ontario) claims that he teaches Media merely because it is mandatory within the province. In South Africa, teachers who engage with Media Education seem to do so with a sense of its political importance and a conviction about its value. The South African study speaks of the passion and enthusiasm of teachers and, in the other studies, teachers often saw themselves as pioneers responding to the challenge of new terrain. Although the precise terms may vary slightly, three basic paradigms are present in the stated aims and preferred approaches of most of the teachers in each of our separate studies.

Table 7: Three Media Education Paradigms

The ‘inoculatory’ paradigm, which seeks to develop discrimination against certain kinds of media, corresponds closely to the ‘cultural heritage’approach (England, Western Australia) referred to in the Cox Report (DES, 1989), to ‘transmission’ education (South Africa) and to ‘protectionist’ or ‘defensive’ strategies (Northern Ireland, Ontario, Massachusetts). The ‘popular arts’ paradigm, which seeks to encourage discrimination between media, corresponds to the ‘personal growth’ model (England, Western Australia) and to the ‘Liberal Humanist’ approach (South Africa). The ‘representational’ paradigm, which seeks to address issues of ideology, power and the politics of representation, corresponds to the ‘cultural analysis’ approach (England, Western Australia, South Africa) and to ‘progressive’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘oppositional’ strategies (South Africa). These paradigms represent the three major phases in the development of Media Education in the last 50 years, at least in England. Yet all three paradigms remain operational in every educational context which we have investigated. In Ontario, where we have richer biographical data that in the other studies, we can see how the three paradigms roughly correspond to three different ‘generations’ of teachers and we can see something of the difference which the paradigms make to their classroom practices. Nevertheless, this is not just a matter of the age of teachers, since there are continuing tensions and debates about their appropriateness in every location. There are, for example, clear schisms amongst educators in the USA between protectionist and empowerment paradigms. At the same time, there are arguably many features shared by ‘protectionist’ and ‘representational’ paradigms in terms of identifying texts, processes and institutions for particular attention rather than others. Such issues as racism, sexism and exploitation in various forms are central features of both paradigms. The differences, however, are both ideological and pedagogical. Ideologically, the shift is from right-wing to left-wing politics and pedagogically from didacticism to dialogue.

Media Education is not necessarily linked to sophisticated new technologies, but the majority of teachers in all of our studies seemed to be remarkably conservative in their choice of media for study. The print-centredness which often characterises the ‘cultural heritage’ approach was also evident in the South African study, where over half the teachers expressed a preference for print media as classroom resources, although they also claimed to be happy teaching about electronic media where that was appropriate. The majority of this same group saw themselves as embracing a ‘critical’ paradigm, but did not always sound convincing in their understanding of what was meant by that. In Northern Ireland, the ‘inoculatory’ paradigm seems still to dominate the study of advertising and of newspapers, with occasional references to Vance Packard. Only one classroom in the study focused on the medium of television and ‘adult’ newspapers were favoured over comics and magazines. Printcentredness was dominant in most of the classes we observed in England and teachers (irrespective of their age) said that they were happier handling traditional printed texts rather than electronic ones.

However, none of these findings is intended to suggest more general patterns which may be endemic to particular cultures. In fact, all three paradigms may be traced in almost every English\Media teacher. It is also the case that a teacher may voice allegiance to one particular set of beliefs about the purposes of Media Education but actually contradict them in the classroom..

6.2 Future Research Needs

This research shows that both the general cultural contexts of media power and access on the one hand and, on the other, the perceptions of educators, administrators and social commentators of the media’s importance in shaping values and social competencies are crucial to decisions about curriculum direction. The discourses which emerge from tensions around ‘mediatization’ provide many of the philosophical and educational justifications used by English\Media teachers for including Media Education in their work and determine the particular accents and emphases of their classroom pedagogies. Their confidence and competence in the classroom are also partially determined by their experience of and access to training and to local support networks, curriculum materials and critical\theoretical literature. School policies, the support of colleagues, appropriate facilities and necessary resources offer a framework within which larger socio-cultural forces operate locally. But the major factor in determining the teaching processes and strategies of English\Media teachers seems to be autobiographical and necessarily, therefore, intimately related to their own developing experiences of media. This is most obviously the case in relation to interactive teaching strategies, teaching in context and incorporation of practical production work in the classroom.

The research also suggests that teachers who operate within a ‘popular arts’ or ‘representational’ paradigm are more likely to be comfortable with these interactive, contextual and practical approaches than those working within an ‘inoculatory’ one. Indeed, there is an ironic symmetry between the belief of some teachers in the manipulative power of media and their vain hope that didactic, teacher-centred pedagogies can make any difference to what young people think and feel about the media. On the other hand, teachers who see the media as significant and powerful ideological forces which systematically represent the world and specific values to particular social and cultural groups with their own semantic power as interpretive communities, often adopt more pupil-centred approaches and find a place for pupils’ extra-curricular media experience and knowledge. Media Education examines both the way we make sense of the world and the way others make sense of the world for us. But there seems to be a dominant concern amongst English teachers with the first part of this definition at the expense of the second. English teachers are consistently more concerned with individual perception, language forms and responses than with social interactions, institutions, technology and production.

What precisely determines the basic operational paradigms of English\Media teachers remains open to debate, but it seems that the crucial factors are autobiographical. Training and formal policies may make an impact on teachers’ motivations, but only indirectly: they may be necessary factors but they are not sufficient. Ultimately, the pre-disposition of teachers and their motivation, when properly resourced physically, culturally and intellectually, seem to be the major factors in involvement in Media Education. Its long-term development on a scale commensurate with the globalisation of media processes and institutions depends on such individual experience and commitment. We have at least done something to remedy the „enormous dearth of descriptive work in classrooms“ (Brumfit and Mitchell, 1989, p. 6). In addition, our analysis has uncovered a range of models and paradigms which English\Media teachers have drawn on with varying degrees of awareness and explicitness. We have shown how these models have been made operational according to the opportunities and limitations inherent in relatively uniform settings and with the same age-group of students (14-16 year-olds). We have shown, too, how strongly influential some paradigms have been (and remain) amongst teachers in most of the contexts we have studied.

This research has necessarily been limited in terms of scale, depth and scope. Future work on Media Education will need to expand beyond the limits of the English-speaking world and beyond the confines of English-teaching classrooms, especially in the Spanish-speaking world, where Media Education is recognised as of crucial importance for different reasons. It will also need to find ways of sampling more diverse classroom contexts. For example, in South Africa, it would be interesting to widen the sample to include more Indian teachers who have been involved in Media Education and, in the future, to look at developing work amongst native African communities. It will need to look at more cross-curricular work and at more specialized work in Media Studies. It will also need to find more sophisticated and methodologically rigorous ways of looking at teaching than observing single lessons and provide a basis for generalisation which selective case studies cannot claim to do. The evidence provided by this research supports Richards’ claim that classrooms are far from ideal places for a Media curriculum (Richards, 1998, p. 13). Classrooms are, of course, highly artificial spaces and we should not expect to find actual media interactions occurring in them as in everyday social life. But they can occasionally be abandoned in favour of visits to places where media texts are actually produced. Conversely, visits from media practitioners can be arranged and, perhaps increasingly through the mediation of new technologies, classrooms can be turned into spaces which simulate work-places. In this way, the processes of media production can be explored in a social context which can “encourage the social self-understanding of those currently positioned as ‘children’ in the educational system...to become more reflexively conscious of how they construct their own cultural routes through ‘adolescence’ into adulthood. (Richards, 1998, p. 134) If there is a genuine recognition of media as processes, as events and institutions which happen in the social world of young people beyond school, then classrooms can become spaces in which “some of the work of analyzing the contradictory and intensely naturalized assumptions which inform school life can be developed.” (Richards, 1998, p. 149)

But that will depend, too, on teachers. Twenty five years ago, the first systematic study of education about the media in English schools strongly advocated the production by pupils of texts for particular contexts. Pupils’ Media assignments, they suggested, “should be produced with a real audience or public in mind...the school, or even better, the local neighbourhood. (Murdock and Phelps, 1973, p.143) Teaching through media production and teaching in social contexts are both strategies which can make the task of Media teachers more effective and specialist Media teachers frequently incorporate such approaches in their work. Yet one of the most surprising absences in the work we analysed was the study of media texts through production or in action in actual social contexts. This research suggests that English teachers are rarely equipped for this kind of professional challenge. As Richards claims, “A narrowly specialized training in particular academic disciplines must be regarded as, at best, a necessary but never sufficient cultural orientation for teachers working in schools...” (Richards, 1998, p.137)

The Media teacher of the future will need not only to approach media as institutions rather than simply a series of texts. He or she will need to use practical production strategies for teaching and recognise the essentially social dimensions of learning about the media, but will also need to incorporate information technology, in all its forms, in a curriculum which goes beyond embracing the traditional ‘mass media’ and which is not distracted by the inherent fascination of new technologies without reference to their ownership and sociopolitical functions. This will mean going beyond both the existing English\Media curriculum and the currently instrumental role of digital technologies in education as expressive tools. It will mean including critical examination of software developments and information exchange and even employment patterns on a global scale. For the Media educator, this will be, in Richards’ phrase “awkward practice” (Richards, 1998, p.147). The new digital information and communication technologies will need to be seen as more than simply information sources (eg Internet downloading) or as writing resources (for individual and collaborative drafting, editing and, formatting and presentation of texts and for multimedia authoring) or even as a publishing forum (eg uploading to the Internet) or as a means of interacting and exchanging ideas by networking and conferencing. They will also need to be seen as objects of critical study in their own right. This means studying and understanding their operation and potential not only in the classroom, but also in terms of global information exchange and communicative commerce. As Bob Ferguson has argued, the new Media educator will need to “develop a viable and ongoing engagement with the evolution of new technologies as industries, and with the ways in which multimedia approaches are being utilised for educational and other purposes.” (Ferguson, 1996, p.68) As researchers, we need a new agenda which combines a theorised base in classrooms and teachers’ professional concerns with a broader perspective on the role of media in the daily lives of young people and the determining contexts of structures beyond the classroom. The new digital information and communication technologies produce cultural phenomena which differ significantly from the traditional mechanical and electronic media. It is no longer meaningful to speak solely of ‘mass media’ in the face of the proliferation, fragmentation and privatisation of media forms.

Detailed accounts of young peoples’ use of media will demand not only reliable large-scale surveys of school and home contexts but also in-depth talk with parents, teachers and young people about the patterns and purposes of their usage, and smaller scale studies of the micro-routines of media interactions. All of these data will need to be correlated with independent variables such as age, gender, social class and ethnicity in order to construct individual social profiles if we want to establish models of how media are used by young people. Like the classroom practices which Media Education research has begun to analyse, the process of mapping these phenomena will be awkward, but necessary.

REFERENCES

Bazalgette, C.(Ed.) (1989) Primary Media Education: A Curriculum Statement London: BFI

Bazalgette, C. Bevort, E. and Savino, J. (Eds.) (1992) New Directions: Media Education Worldwide BFI/CLEMI

British Film Institute (Autumn 1993) Media Education News Update (MENU) Issue 4, London: BFI

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