ABSTRACT
The nature of media education within English lIke drama, medIa educatIon does not have an independent identity as a curricular subject within the National Curriculum; both subjects are subsumed under the English Orders. Media education particularly, as a relatively recent phenomenon with its own barely established pedagogy and conventions, could be regarded as under threat in this context. There is in fact a striking parallel between this sense of insecurity and that experienced during the early history of English, less than a century ago, in its relationship with classical studies. Some are relieved that media education appears at all in the National Curriculum, pointing out that in the ideological climate of the 1980s its very existence – like society itself in Mrs Thatcher’s famous remark – was called into question. Other commentators show concern over this position; Davies (1996: 59), for example, protests:
Despite Davies’s 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 of media education, by quoting from its publication (Bazalgette 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?
