ABSTRACT
This essay argues that “media policy studies” are important enough to warrant more deliberate critical scholarly and curricular attention. Yet the complexity of media policy presents many challenges. One response is ramping up situated learning apprenticeship opportunities that offer newcomers to the field much-needed experience in what this essay argues is the critical “genre-work” of public-interest oriented policy advocacy practice. In addition, civil society organizations hosting apprentices as interns or fellows help to populate a feeder system into a field that is woefully undernourished. This essay also calls for media policy education parallel to that enjoyed in higher education by other policy fields such as environmental, public health and human rights studies.
