ABSTRACT
Long gone are the days when what we understand by ‘the media’ could be confi ned to newspapers, magazines, television and fi lm. The range of new media and the almost continual hybridisation of forms pose a constant challenge to teachers of English. Pupils are increasingly fl uent users, readers and producers of media text, and the teaching of English needs constantly to develop to refl ect these changes. Along with these changes comes the need for teachers regularly to refl ect upon the nature of their subject and the fundamental concepts that underpin it. What, for example, do English teachers need to know about techniques of television production? How do we theorise knowledge of multimodal texts? Is literacy a fi xed concept? How do we balance technical knowledge with content knowledge when approaching the production of media texts? When dealing with the media we are on constantly shifting ground.
