ABSTRACT
Beginning with a brief historical outline of attitudes to “mass media”, this essay focuses on the concepts and theories that underpinned the development of media education, mainly in the UK, from the 1960s onwards. Technological developments soon enabled its establishment in schools, and through progressive movements in pedagogy and the influence of cultural studies, with its emphasis on audience engagement with popular film and television, media education gained a foothold in formal education, at least in the form of optional examined courses for 14–18-year-olds. But with the expansion of digital technologies in the early 21st century, technological determinism and fears about children’s vulnerability have led to the re-emergence of the “risk” agenda as the basis for what now media education tends to be called “media literacy”. However, teachers’ and parents’ experiences with digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic may have opened up the possibility of a “more nuanced” approach to media education, in which the cultural and social roles of media may once again be recognised.
