RESEARCH < posted November 15, 2001 >

Notes from a Discussion with Henry Jenkins on 11.6.01
(Talking about the history of the field of Media Studies and where my work might fit into that discourse.)

Possible to trace the field of “media studies” back to the early 1900s.

There’s always been a split in the field between those who do qualitative research and those who do quantative (social science) research.

WWII brought things to a head, especially because of the emergence of war-related propaganda.
(Important elements: the Why We Fight films, Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, Orson Well’s War of the Worlds, the Murrow Boys radio news broadcasts, Hitler’s Propaganda)
Media was still very trusted at that time, perceived as being truthful.

Around the early 1950s the Frankfurt School emerged as an important force in the field. It was made up of scholars and social theorists who were interested in applying Marxist theories to new forms of cultural production and social life in 20th C. capitalist societies. In particular they saw modern mass media as a brainwashing element whose purpose was to promote capitalism and mass conformity.

At the same time was the rise of McCarthyism and the growing fear of Communism within the US government.

Around the 1960s a more humanistic strand began to emerge. It was especially focused on looking anew at cinema as an artform rather than a political form. This brought cinema and film studies into the university setting. There was a reassessment of Hollywood as a creator of important cultural works.

Into the 1960s the field became more politicized. Film studies took up the left wing position. Those doing more social science research tended to be fairly antagonistic towards those on the left.

The 1960s and 1970s was the great era of screen theory. Research was fairly hostile to economic motives, stereotying, etc.

Around the same time, in the art world, people like Andy Warhol begin to bring pop culture icons into the realm of galleries and art museums.

The late 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of cultural studies which was interested in pop culture and begins to rethink the role of and the importance of the audience. This was an important paradigm shift.

In the 1980s and 1990s, lots of quantitative social science research trying to prove the damaging effects of media, especially media violence.

In the early 1990s, digital theory emerges.

Comparative Media Studies, which is fairly new, has strong ties to multiple backgrounds including the qualitative and quantative research strands, anthropology, cultural studies, literature and film studies, political economics, etc. It attempts to pull together these different critical traditions in an attempt to understand the interrelationships between media in the midst of a digital revoluion, and a period of technological and cultural convergence.

News and journalism cuts across multiple critical traditions.
A few important threads are through cultural studies, media effects research and political economy perspectives. Some important people to research include: Stuart Hall (encoding and decoding media images), John Hartley (cultural and communication studies focusing on the news), John Fiske (talks about radio and tv as democratizing because it can reach non-literate people), Greg Philo (media effects research, one study in particular focuses on viewer responses to news coverage of a coal dispute in England in the mid-80s). Also, more sources on the reconstructions site in the interpretations section http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/interpretations/

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conclusions:
Important to focus on the aspect of convergence in the area of critical theory. This is something I’m really looking to do in my own work. In particular, I’d like to add design dialogue into the mix of relevant areas discussed above.