ABSTRACT
Despite Davies’ view, the inclusion and promotion of media education in the original National Curriculum for English did achieve significant advances in ensuring at least that all English departments took this area of the subject seriously. It is worth looking back at the Cox (DES 1989) conception of media education, its place in the subsequent official orders, and what commentators made of it. By so doing, we may uncover useful approaches to the rather less detailed – some would say less satisfactory – account in the current orders. Cox was able to make full use of the expertise of the British Film Institute, then as now pioneering the cause
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of media education, by quoting from its publication (Bazalgette (ed.) 1989:96) of primary phase curriculum policy:
This provides us still with a series of useful guiding principles at once wide-ranging and encouraging depth of study. In terms of the original National Curriculum, published a year later, the fundamental principles were adapted into three approaches (to be found in probably the most useful section entitled ‘Non-Statutory Guidance’):
■ Approach 1: Media Languages: – How do we make sense of a media text?
