ABSTRACT
Most adult education classes will have recourse, at some point, to videotape, radio, newspaper and magazine materials. Frequently, such materials will be used illustratively, though there will probably be few occasions when the nature of the evidence presented from these sources will be accepted as entirely unproblematic. In most groups, questions of bias, selectivity, and typicality are likely to be raised quite spontaneously. In others, media treatment of the subject under consideration might itself be considered as a sub-topic worthy of serious investigation in its own right (as in courses which have as a component ‘images of …’ such groups as women, trade unionists, welfare claimants, ethnic minorities, etc.). There also exist, here and there, fully-fledged courses on the mass media which might typically involve the analysis of specific television programmes or newspaper articles, explore questions of media economics and patterns of ownership and control, and look at problems of audience response. They are likely, too, to involve a practical element, in which participants have the opportunity to make video and audio-tapes, produce their own newspapers, and perhaps even use and influence the media which are available to them locally. 1
