Should Media Studies be a Leaving Cert Subject?

kittex

Interested in getting opinions on this.

Media Studies has been added to the A Levels in England for a while and recently in the Scottish Highers.
In all the chat about chnages to the Leaving though, I've been disappointed that it I haven't seen it brought up (or maybe I've mssed something - if so do link me!)

I know that some schools have media modules as part of Transition year, but I do think it could work well as Leaving Cert. In using similar skills to English, enhances analysis abilities and I feel there's also a responsibilty on educators to help young people interpret the manipulation of the mass media.

Any thoughts?

Muiriosa

I don't think so. Not with the current English course anyway. The current course is huge already. I don't think teachers could fit it all in or students would want to take it all in. I think it's a very interesting part of English and perhaps in the future it could be introduced with a new syllabus. But not now though... I'm a leaving cert student and we still haven't covered the whole course. Doubt we will until the last week... It's not the teachers fault, it's the fact that the course is massive.

Nice idea for the future though.

All the best!

stupefly

I dont think he meant as part of the English course but as a subject on it's own.
If I'm correct with the interpretation then I agree. Im doing a degree in Media Studies at the moment and I think its a very interesting area. There could even be a practical assesment too to help the less acedemic students.

kittex

Yep, I meant as a totally separate subject, not as part of the (overloaded) English course)

Although it uses similar skills to English, the teaching is quite different and yes, stupefly, practical elements to it can really engage those less academic students.

So far I've seen it work very well. You'd be amazed at the amount of young people who can perceptively analyse the sound in a movie for example. Also I think Ireland needs to help Leaving Cert students be more competitive with students from other European countries, where it is often on the curriculum in its own right.

Tom Dunne

What exactly is involved in media studies?

Does the subject involve reading newspapers/watching Sky News?

stupefly

I'll try and think of what I'm doing on my course, Tom, it may be the same on a second level curriculum.

Last year we learnt about the representation of certain groups in the media, semiotics, gender, screenwriting, a lot of the effects of the medis on society, studied research undertaken to see if TV has a direct effect on us. Talked about the Pubic Sphere and how to define it, commercialisation, globalisation moderism and postmodernism. I can't remember the rest of my subjects but thats the general gist of it.

m1ke

I think they should extend CSPE to the Leaving cert. This would mean most of Media Studies would be covered in some form or another by it, and other subjects like English etc...

Trotter

m1ke wrote:

I think they should extend CSPE to the Leaving cert. This would mean most of Media Studies would be covered in some form or another by it, and other subjects like English etc...

Great idea.. Ive got plenty of leaving cert students that love yapping about current affairs, and obviously have an interest in the goings on outside the door in the big world so leaving cert CSPE would be good for them. I think it'd be a good subject for budding journalists and possible members of the diplomatic corps.

kittex

Interesting to see support for the idea. I heard a rumour they are considering it for the future.

Most countries have seen campaigns to have Media Education made part of the curriculum
Interesting site about the American campaign here: www.mediaed.org
The UK: www.mediaed.org.uk/whatis.php

I tend to find young people in Ireland are a bit more media savvy though in terms of politics and agenda. Maybe because we get the Media from so many different cultural viewpoints growing up, we're less likely to instantly swallow what we see in the press/television?