Media Studies and Society
The Strengths of Media Philosophy
In the United Kingdom, there is a massive amount of stigma attached to students who undertake a Media Studies degree. People seem to have the mindset that because Media Studies is such a popular degree, it is somehow less valuable, or some sort of an easy ride of a degree.
Of course they have other arguments to justify their distaste for the subject. One such argument is that because the course is relatively new, it is weak and somehow academically lacking because of this. Granted, many Universities see Media studies degrees as guaranteed sources of revenue because of their popularity with students, but this doesn’t necessarily have to devalue the subject itself.
In the early twentieth century even English Literature degrees were seen as a joke and a passing fad for aspiring young layabout intellectuals. But now, many years, on they are seen as the cornerstone of Universities, and as a very respectable degree.
With the proliferation of the internet, television and multi-media communication, understanding the way these mediums, their constituent businesses and their products work is already very important, and will become even more essential in the future. The skills that Media Studies gives its students will prove to be vital in tomorrows world.
Media Proliferation
It is more than likely then, in twenty or thirty years time the media will be such an overarching and dominating part of everyone's life that graduates will be seen as simply unemployable if they are not able to understand and interact with the media instantly.
Indeed, even now it is damaging to a graduate's employability if he has no concept of how media organisations and their output are created to manipulate the public.
Media Philosophy
The idea that Media Studies as an academic discipline is very weak is also extremely inaccurate. As a discipline, Media Studies brings together theory from many different areas, such as English language and discourse analysis to business studies and even philosophical works by the likes of Michel Foucault. All these theories and approaches to social science are what Media Studies is founded upon, and to say that these constituent disciplines themselves are academically lacking would be utterly wrong.
More than anything else, Media Studies degrees are demonised because of the lack of information that the public has about them, and the fact that as employers are often of an older generation, they are somewhat out of touch with modern academia and are probably themselves unaware of the influence that the media has over their own lives.
This should not be so, and in a few years time Media Studies will probably have the academic respect and recognition is deserves.
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