More on the role of Media Studies in producing subjectivities of new workers

Earlier this month I spoke at The Media Education Summit 2008 . reflecting more on the wider role of Media Studies as a subject/discipline and its ‘effect’ on developing particular kinds of subjectivity. The talk first looks at early Media Studies as the product of an activist teacher-workforce racially exploring questions of contest and pedagogy. This approach received formal (if contradictory) mandate by societies concerned with the effects of mass media and I also looked at current attempts to define media literacy as a form of self-regulation in concert with the current educational-isation of media culture. Finally the talk will consider the paradox of how media studies works along with other creative industries subjects to produce forms of precarious labour -the defining feature of the creative workforce. Final directions reflect of the politics of this ‘incorporation’.