Editorial published during the Coronavirus lockdown, considering the nature of Media Studies as a... more Editorial published during the Coronavirus lockdown, considering the nature of Media Studies as a discipline and epistemological orientation.
Editorial (intro): Welcome to the very first fully Open Access issue of the Media Education Resea... more Editorial (intro): Welcome to the very first fully Open Access issue of the Media Education Research Journal. Articles are now available for anyone to read, free of charge, and in perpetuity with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). There are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) either, so authors (or their institutions) do not need to pay to publish. This pivot to Open Access (OA) came at a time when there were lots of other 'pivots' occurring – not least the one to online learning during the pandemic. The pandemic was not a direct contributory factor to MERJ's change in status, but (without ignoring the crisis and misery it precipitated) it did create a sense of possibility – it forced us to explore the affordances of the online world and, subsequently, has encouraged us to address the function and purpose of particular activities, acknowledging that some are not worse, and may even be better, online.
alism too much. Some of the suggestions, like the one mentioned above, suggest that it is incumbe... more alism too much. Some of the suggestions, like the one mentioned above, suggest that it is incumbent upon the scholar to engage in additional labor, and labor with which s/he may not have experience, in order to brand the research (as well as the researcher) in a more accessible way. Are these steps toward the marketization of academia – particularly in relation to the neoliberal capitalist market? While the text seems to grapple with this question, it would benefit from additional problematizations of its own implications. In addition to its complex relation to neoliberalism, this book also presents a tension between the general and the specific. While Freeman sets out to provide a UK-centric consideration of media industry research methods, there is, in some chapters scant mention of the specificities of the UK media industries. For example, Freeman’s chapter text will sometimes refer to Hollywood, and at other times to the UK industries, but most of the nuts-and-bolts discussions ...
of society: finance, business, commerce, the military, diplomacy, telecommunications, internation... more of society: finance, business, commerce, the military, diplomacy, telecommunications, international relations, not to mention intelligence and spying. All are institutions that can comprise highly political behaviour, such as disinformation, concealment, and ‘wordy silences’, as, for instance, was the case with the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, spying and hacking have in any case entered the public realm in spectacular ways – Wikileaks; Edward Snowden; the News of the World case – breaking open the silence behind unwelcome revelations.
Media education has an uneasy relationship with the rhetorics of creativity, which are explored i... more Media education has an uneasy relationship with the rhetorics of creativity, which are explored in this article. In Learning: Creative Approaches that Raise Standards (OFSTED, 2010), creativity is operationalised. That is, as Marcuse (1972) tells us, the concept is made synonymous with a corresponding set of operations. The document takes the form of a ‘survey’, but its status as an Ofsted publication means that it is unlikely to be read merely as a neutral set of observations. It is more likely that this will be read as a set of guidelines for good practice – practice which, if adopted, is likely to lead to a favourable Ofsted grade in the future. In this sense the document operates, in a Foucaultian sense, as a discursive statement – it is regulatory, administrative and ‘limiting’. Ostensibly drawing upon a version of creativity produced, reified and reinforced by three other education policy documents (All Our Futures (1999), Creativity: Find it, promote it (QCA, 2004) and Nurtur...
This incisive guide provides a much needed summary of the complex issues surrounding film censors... more This incisive guide provides a much needed summary of the complex issues surrounding film censorship and controversy. It offers practical suggestions for teaching the determining factors in, and ideological importance of, censorship and classification. Also included are proposed strategies for discussing "problem films," analyzing texts, and debating the nature of effects. Contents include: The historical context for censorship and classification The discourses and ideologies that inform and produce controversy The arguments for and against censorship Concepts of audiences and effects Textual meanings Audience research and analysis of data Contemporary academic and official perspectives on censorship and classification
Analysis and Final Reporting* Critical analysis of all data collected. Presentation of data in th... more Analysis and Final Reporting* Critical analysis of all data collected. Presentation of data in the form of a final Project Report including key findings, recommendations, and success stories. Jan 16 Web and Press Dissemination Dissemination of associated project materials online and engagement with press-outlets. Techknowledge to support. Feb-March 16 Impact Development-Development of Best Practices Funded through Bournemouth University and the Engineering, Physical Sciences Research Council. Capture and present examples of best practice through a Digital Inclusion seminar series and training opportunities. Jan-July 16 (potentially 2019) Training sessions are underway with Skills & Learning and Synergy Housing group.
This chapter takes as its case study a Doctor of Education programme in the Centre for Excellence... more This chapter takes as its case study a Doctor of Education programme in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University. It offers some background to the development of a particular blended learning model and considers the experience of the participants, assessing the degree to which the design of the virtual learning environment produced certain kinds of participation and resistance; I am interested in trying to explain the things which worked, and which didn’t work in this particular instance of an educational VLE. The case study is presented as a narrative, without theorisation, but first I discuss critical approaches to technology-assisted learning. Ultimately, I argue, although it is important to attend to the design and structure of virtual learning environments, the frame for this must always be the social dimension of interaction, participation and learning.
Introduction: assessment context why teach screenwriting and storyboards how to use this guide sc... more Introduction: assessment context why teach screenwriting and storyboards how to use this guide schemes of work teaching tips. Essential terms and concepts: terminology screenplay format the Three Act Story Structure. Screenplay basics: story structure story types character dialogue Storyboard basics: format shot types sequencing. Planning a project: planning, categorising and structuring a story developing a treatment and pitch sequencing a script and designing storyboard.
The death of David Bowie, paradoxically, brings his ontic status into sharp relief, and, in turn,... more The death of David Bowie, paradoxically, brings his ontic status into sharp relief, and, in turn, throws light on the construction of the figure of the artist – a spectre – the ‘creative practitioner’. An ontology of Bowie entails an interrogation of presence, absence and the historiographic portrait of the artist as a dead rock star (or not).
Engaging young people is a perennial theme of UK elections, updated for the social media age but ... more Engaging young people is a perennial theme of UK elections, updated for the social media age but carrying long-standing assumptions. How ‘youth voice’ is articulated in specific practices, and on whose terms, is complex, especially in the ‘micropolitical’ social media age, but there is little space or time for this in either party campaigning or ‘old media’ analysis.
This work begins with the idea that creativity is a problematic concept generally and in educatio... more This work begins with the idea that creativity is a problematic concept generally and in education particularly. I argue that it is necessary to shed a belief in an ʻessenceʼ of creativity in order to understand how knowledge about creativity is produced. In a review of different approaches to creativity I identify the ways in which ʻtruth effectsʼ are produced in scientific and popular texts. Of particular interest here are approaches and assumptions (expressed through language and operations) in the domains of psychology, education and the arts. A post structuralist analytical methodology, drawing particularly on Foucaultʼs work, is justified in relation to the significance of concepts such as discourse, ideology, rhetoric and myth which, I argue, are crucial in understanding how creativity is made meaningful. The primary analysis is of key documents from the last decade which have sought to inform education policy on creativity: All our futures (NACCCE 1999); Creativity: Find it,...
This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (... more This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (2004, 2001, 2009) in the disciplinary context of media production. Graduated scenarios have previously been used to model different levels of critical thinking and reflection and have been based on situations and experiences that can be related to by a wide range of people. Our development of them in a specific creative disciplinary context, for use by students within that context, represents an evolution of the process, but we also consider the possible reception of such models in the context of debates around academic literacies and the degree to which they may be seen and used as contributing to an orthodoxy of expression. We acknowledge that this experiment in writing and pedagogy may be perceived as providing ‘exemplars of standards’, but argue that it actually models differing depths of thinking, and also opens up discussion about orthodoxies of academic writing. Our four models of...
Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works was discredited when it was discovered that it ... more Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works was discredited when it was discovered that it included fabricated quotes by Bob Dylan. It was also criticised for cherry picking the science of creativity and adding little of worth to the literature on the subject. While this may be true, I suggest that much scientific literature about creativity is already epistemologically and methodologically incoherent, and characterised by the treatment of creativity as something with stable ontic status, rather than something which is always, inevitably produced through cultural processes of interpretation and association. An examination, using the tools of discourse analysis, of some of the research papers cited by Lehrer, along with other related examples, reveals some of the assumptions and rhetorical manoeuvres at work. Despite the overt falsehoods in his book, the stories that Jonah Lehrer tells us are consistent with the stories that the research, science, and policy tell us about creat...
Editorial published during the Coronavirus lockdown, considering the nature of Media Studies as a... more Editorial published during the Coronavirus lockdown, considering the nature of Media Studies as a discipline and epistemological orientation.
Editorial (intro): Welcome to the very first fully Open Access issue of the Media Education Resea... more Editorial (intro): Welcome to the very first fully Open Access issue of the Media Education Research Journal. Articles are now available for anyone to read, free of charge, and in perpetuity with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). There are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) either, so authors (or their institutions) do not need to pay to publish. This pivot to Open Access (OA) came at a time when there were lots of other 'pivots' occurring – not least the one to online learning during the pandemic. The pandemic was not a direct contributory factor to MERJ's change in status, but (without ignoring the crisis and misery it precipitated) it did create a sense of possibility – it forced us to explore the affordances of the online world and, subsequently, has encouraged us to address the function and purpose of particular activities, acknowledging that some are not worse, and may even be better, online.
alism too much. Some of the suggestions, like the one mentioned above, suggest that it is incumbe... more alism too much. Some of the suggestions, like the one mentioned above, suggest that it is incumbent upon the scholar to engage in additional labor, and labor with which s/he may not have experience, in order to brand the research (as well as the researcher) in a more accessible way. Are these steps toward the marketization of academia – particularly in relation to the neoliberal capitalist market? While the text seems to grapple with this question, it would benefit from additional problematizations of its own implications. In addition to its complex relation to neoliberalism, this book also presents a tension between the general and the specific. While Freeman sets out to provide a UK-centric consideration of media industry research methods, there is, in some chapters scant mention of the specificities of the UK media industries. For example, Freeman’s chapter text will sometimes refer to Hollywood, and at other times to the UK industries, but most of the nuts-and-bolts discussions ...
of society: finance, business, commerce, the military, diplomacy, telecommunications, internation... more of society: finance, business, commerce, the military, diplomacy, telecommunications, international relations, not to mention intelligence and spying. All are institutions that can comprise highly political behaviour, such as disinformation, concealment, and ‘wordy silences’, as, for instance, was the case with the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, spying and hacking have in any case entered the public realm in spectacular ways – Wikileaks; Edward Snowden; the News of the World case – breaking open the silence behind unwelcome revelations.
Media education has an uneasy relationship with the rhetorics of creativity, which are explored i... more Media education has an uneasy relationship with the rhetorics of creativity, which are explored in this article. In Learning: Creative Approaches that Raise Standards (OFSTED, 2010), creativity is operationalised. That is, as Marcuse (1972) tells us, the concept is made synonymous with a corresponding set of operations. The document takes the form of a ‘survey’, but its status as an Ofsted publication means that it is unlikely to be read merely as a neutral set of observations. It is more likely that this will be read as a set of guidelines for good practice – practice which, if adopted, is likely to lead to a favourable Ofsted grade in the future. In this sense the document operates, in a Foucaultian sense, as a discursive statement – it is regulatory, administrative and ‘limiting’. Ostensibly drawing upon a version of creativity produced, reified and reinforced by three other education policy documents (All Our Futures (1999), Creativity: Find it, promote it (QCA, 2004) and Nurtur...
This incisive guide provides a much needed summary of the complex issues surrounding film censors... more This incisive guide provides a much needed summary of the complex issues surrounding film censorship and controversy. It offers practical suggestions for teaching the determining factors in, and ideological importance of, censorship and classification. Also included are proposed strategies for discussing "problem films," analyzing texts, and debating the nature of effects. Contents include: The historical context for censorship and classification The discourses and ideologies that inform and produce controversy The arguments for and against censorship Concepts of audiences and effects Textual meanings Audience research and analysis of data Contemporary academic and official perspectives on censorship and classification
Analysis and Final Reporting* Critical analysis of all data collected. Presentation of data in th... more Analysis and Final Reporting* Critical analysis of all data collected. Presentation of data in the form of a final Project Report including key findings, recommendations, and success stories. Jan 16 Web and Press Dissemination Dissemination of associated project materials online and engagement with press-outlets. Techknowledge to support. Feb-March 16 Impact Development-Development of Best Practices Funded through Bournemouth University and the Engineering, Physical Sciences Research Council. Capture and present examples of best practice through a Digital Inclusion seminar series and training opportunities. Jan-July 16 (potentially 2019) Training sessions are underway with Skills & Learning and Synergy Housing group.
This chapter takes as its case study a Doctor of Education programme in the Centre for Excellence... more This chapter takes as its case study a Doctor of Education programme in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University. It offers some background to the development of a particular blended learning model and considers the experience of the participants, assessing the degree to which the design of the virtual learning environment produced certain kinds of participation and resistance; I am interested in trying to explain the things which worked, and which didn’t work in this particular instance of an educational VLE. The case study is presented as a narrative, without theorisation, but first I discuss critical approaches to technology-assisted learning. Ultimately, I argue, although it is important to attend to the design and structure of virtual learning environments, the frame for this must always be the social dimension of interaction, participation and learning.
Introduction: assessment context why teach screenwriting and storyboards how to use this guide sc... more Introduction: assessment context why teach screenwriting and storyboards how to use this guide schemes of work teaching tips. Essential terms and concepts: terminology screenplay format the Three Act Story Structure. Screenplay basics: story structure story types character dialogue Storyboard basics: format shot types sequencing. Planning a project: planning, categorising and structuring a story developing a treatment and pitch sequencing a script and designing storyboard.
The death of David Bowie, paradoxically, brings his ontic status into sharp relief, and, in turn,... more The death of David Bowie, paradoxically, brings his ontic status into sharp relief, and, in turn, throws light on the construction of the figure of the artist – a spectre – the ‘creative practitioner’. An ontology of Bowie entails an interrogation of presence, absence and the historiographic portrait of the artist as a dead rock star (or not).
Engaging young people is a perennial theme of UK elections, updated for the social media age but ... more Engaging young people is a perennial theme of UK elections, updated for the social media age but carrying long-standing assumptions. How ‘youth voice’ is articulated in specific practices, and on whose terms, is complex, especially in the ‘micropolitical’ social media age, but there is little space or time for this in either party campaigning or ‘old media’ analysis.
This work begins with the idea that creativity is a problematic concept generally and in educatio... more This work begins with the idea that creativity is a problematic concept generally and in education particularly. I argue that it is necessary to shed a belief in an ʻessenceʼ of creativity in order to understand how knowledge about creativity is produced. In a review of different approaches to creativity I identify the ways in which ʻtruth effectsʼ are produced in scientific and popular texts. Of particular interest here are approaches and assumptions (expressed through language and operations) in the domains of psychology, education and the arts. A post structuralist analytical methodology, drawing particularly on Foucaultʼs work, is justified in relation to the significance of concepts such as discourse, ideology, rhetoric and myth which, I argue, are crucial in understanding how creativity is made meaningful. The primary analysis is of key documents from the last decade which have sought to inform education policy on creativity: All our futures (NACCCE 1999); Creativity: Find it,...
This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (... more This article describes the development and implementation of Jenny Moon’s ‘Graduated scenarios’ (2004, 2001, 2009) in the disciplinary context of media production. Graduated scenarios have previously been used to model different levels of critical thinking and reflection and have been based on situations and experiences that can be related to by a wide range of people. Our development of them in a specific creative disciplinary context, for use by students within that context, represents an evolution of the process, but we also consider the possible reception of such models in the context of debates around academic literacies and the degree to which they may be seen and used as contributing to an orthodoxy of expression. We acknowledge that this experiment in writing and pedagogy may be perceived as providing ‘exemplars of standards’, but argue that it actually models differing depths of thinking, and also opens up discussion about orthodoxies of academic writing. Our four models of...
Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works was discredited when it was discovered that it ... more Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works was discredited when it was discovered that it included fabricated quotes by Bob Dylan. It was also criticised for cherry picking the science of creativity and adding little of worth to the literature on the subject. While this may be true, I suggest that much scientific literature about creativity is already epistemologically and methodologically incoherent, and characterised by the treatment of creativity as something with stable ontic status, rather than something which is always, inevitably produced through cultural processes of interpretation and association. An examination, using the tools of discourse analysis, of some of the research papers cited by Lehrer, along with other related examples, reveals some of the assumptions and rhetorical manoeuvres at work. Despite the overt falsehoods in his book, the stories that Jonah Lehrer tells us are consistent with the stories that the research, science, and policy tell us about creat...
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