Media Studies

My son has recently started a course in media studies and I happened to look at one of his textbooks for the first time.

I have never read such a load of old bollocks.

Most of it might as well have been written in 14th century Flemish for all the bearing it has on the skills and thinking you need to forge a media career in 21st century Britain.

If this is typical of what they are teaching kids about the media then God help listeners, viewers, readers and surfers of the future.

What appears to have happened is that a bunch of educationalists who have little idea about the media have got hold of the subject and decided to academicise it. Probably ex-sociologists.

In doing so they have overlooked a basic truth.

We live in a world where people are overloaded with information. We've got it coming at us from every direction 24/7. In such an environment, the overriding requirement is that programmes, articles, advertisements, web pages etc connect with their target audiences - audiences who are hugely distracted and greatly spoilt for choice.

For the vast majority of content that means it has to be written and presented in a way that is clear, simple, accessible and down to earth.

One of my main objections is that much of the language used in my son's textbook is the very opposite of that. It is absolutely not the language you would use as a journalist, scriptwriter, copywriter, editor or producer.

Indeed it is the kind of wordy, inflated, convoluted, pretentious nonsense that would be the hallmark of an amateur in the field.

And there we have our first big clue. This textbook has been written by media amateurs who are seeking to cover their ignorance of the subject by blinding us with ludicrous terminology.

It's the classic trick played by academics. They have taken a relatively straightforward subject and made it impenetrable by drowning it in an ocean of abstract nouns and fancy terminology. Terminology which no self respecting media professional would use in any editorial conference, production meeting or creative brainstorming session.

My other main objection is that the kind of esoteric points the writers of this textbook are trying to convey about the media, would be right at the bottom of the list of priorities facing any modern media professional.

Their primary concern is how to create fresh, engaging material that attracts an audience, touches that audience, speaks to that audience, connects with that audience, informs that audience, entertains that audience and generally holds that audience's attention.

This text book has very little of practical value to say on that kind of stuff.

In short it is not preparing my son for a career in the media, but preparing him to be an academic observer of the media. Or maybe to write useless textbooks on the subject, like this one.