do we really need media education 2.0

1
do we really need media education 2.0?

• david buckingham
• institute of education, university of london

2
do we really need media education 2.0?time for a
new paradigm?

• 2.0-ology the complete reinvention of everything
• teaching young people in the age of participatory
  media
• william merrin on the right to teach
• Our fear of technology often extends to our own
  personal use of it. Whereas in the broadcast-era
  we broadly understood the basic technical
  principles of the dominant media and we
  understood their use sharing that use with our
  students today lecturers are being left behind
  in their knowledge of what technologies are out
  there, of their technical possibilities, of how
  they even work, of how to use them and of what
  they are being used for. Again, we no longer
  share a common culture with our students. Unless
  we can keep up with these changing technologies
  and uses and unless they become as integral a
  part of our lives as they are to our students
  then we will lose both the ability and even the
  right to teach them. In an era in which we
  watched and studied TV we had a right to teach
  it in the future, unless were downloading,
  sharing, ripping, burning, messaging, networking,
  playing, building and producing then well lose
  that right.

3
do we really need media education 2.0?2.0-ology

• david gauntletts binary opposites
• media 1.0 media 2.0
• old media new media
• consumption participation/production
• hierarchy popular democracy
• media studies 1.0 media studies 2.0
• the media canon the long tail
• western media global media
• text analysis political economy audience
  research (and beyond)
• conventional research methods creative methods
• expert readings ordinary audience members
• teaching people to be critical people are already
  critical

4
do we really need media education 2.0?2.0
rhetorics

• populism
• Media Studies 1.0 tends to fetishise 'experts',
  whose readings of popular culture are seen as
  more significant than those of other audience
  members (with corresponding faith in faux-expert
  non-procedures such as semiotics). In Media
  Studies 2.0 this is replaced with a focus on the
  everyday meanings produced by the diverse array
  of audience members.
• The patronising belief that students should be
  taught how to 'read' the media is replaced by the
  recognition that media audiences in general are
  already extremely capable interpreters of media
  content, with a critical eye and an understanding
  of contemporary media techniques, thanks in large
  part to the large amount of coverage of this in
  popular media itself(Gauntlett)
• the californian ideology meets the digital
  generation
• democratisation through participatory media

5
do we really need media education 2.0?whats new?

• rebranding the internet oreilly media
• a history of claims about democratisation
• whos participating?
• a small proportion of users
• the usual suspects
• new digital divides

6
do we really need media education 2.0?what are
they doing?

• not being artistically and politically
  challenging
• banality and the home mode
• whos making money?
• technology is shifting power away from the
  editors, the publishers, the establishment, the
  media élite now its the people who are taking
  control.
• rupert murdoch, 2006
• a new business model

7
do we really need media education 2.0?whos
doing the work?

• loser-generated content selling ourselves to
  advertisers?
• labouring for the brand?
• and is any of it any good?
• disintermediation - an endless digital forest of
  mediocrity?
• neoliberal individualisation, self-surveillance
  and self-promotion

8
do we really need media education
2.0?educational implications

• addressing the participation gap
• jenkins cultural competence
• beyond cyber-utopianism in education
• challenging the new rhetorics
• rethinking critique
• beyond language games and rationalistic routines
• integrating creativity and critique
• challenging the new vocationalism
• the dream of cool jobs in the knowledge economy

9
do we really need media education 2.0?

• keeping pace with the digital generation
• but not a futile attempt to be down with the kids
• exploiting new opportunities for participation
• but participation is not an end in itself
• using technology for creative learning
• but in combination with critical reflection and
  knowledge
• challenging the celebration of technology