Media Conference Summaries

Chewing Gum for the brain?:

According to a man called Mr Reynolds watching the Simpsons supposedly 'dumbing down' children in English lessons when they should be studying real literature like Shakespeare; this complaint sparked a lot of controversy as he felt that his children's education is at stake. This shows a clear example of the negativity of Media Studies on people who may have never studied the subject or understand it.

"Tories tackle Media Studies menace" - The Independent, or in other words they believe Media Studies is a 'soft subject'; meaning students can easily pass the subject and it does not require much effort on the students side. Appearently Media Studies helps schools grades to be boosted in the league table suggesting that the schools teaching Media Studies are giving other people a false hope of their grades.

According to many broadsheet newspapers Media Studies is an 'End of Civilisation'; e.g " 'Worthless' qualifications give false hope to state pupils says Harrow Head" - The Guardian, basically deprived students will not get far in life because Media Studies is not a serious subject. This is false because most Maths, Law and even Cooking graduates from university do not a get jobs immediately compared to Media Studies students as they have a higher demand is our media-driven society.

Media Studies is a serious subject as it teaches students about history, roles, different aspects of culture.

Online Media: Cleggmore and The Cowell Factor.

Online Media, Reality TV, Talent TV all link to politics as the consumers now have the power to express their views on each of these and the presenters/judges have more influence than politicians do now.

People like Simon Cowell is thought to have as much power as politicians.

We have converged media all around us, older people will notice the change between the popularity of the different platforms over the years. For example Web 2.0 allows us to share and collabrate more than ever!

Does this not make us democratic? In my own opinion we have become more democratic, which allows consumers to think more.