Page 11 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

INTRODUCTION

when universities in Europe, Australia and elsewhere began to open
their doors to people whose families had never before sent a daughter
or son to university. The combination – newideas, new objects of
study, newstudents – has made this field very dynamic, very
interesting to work in and also controversial.
As relatively newareas of study, communication, cultural and media
studies have been characterised by fast-moving and innovative research
work; by the attempt to say newthings in newways. At the same time,
they have borrowed widely from a variety of established academic
disciplines and discourses. As a result, there is often an uneasy period
for the newcomer to the area, until you get your bearings.
What follows is a field guide. It is designed to put together in an
accessible form some of the most important concepts that you will
encounter, and to showsome of the ways in which these concepts
have been (or might be) used. The book is not a dictionary – it does
not claim to treat concepts ‘definitively’. The entries are not
destinations but starting points for further intellectual and practical
work.
Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts is
designed to help students and teachers newto the area find their way
about. It may be that getting to knowa new area of study is best done
by the usual method: crashing about in the dark and bumping into
things. This was certainly the case was for me when I started trying to
understand communication, culture and media back in 1969, the year
I went to university (the first member of my family to do so). And it
still is, really, given the speed and scale of change in all of these
domains. Always there is something new to discover, and people keep
moving the furniture around when you’re not looking. I thought at
the time that a guide would be handy, and still do. I hope that what
follows helps you to shed a little light on your chosen topics.
Using a book like this might seem cumbersome to begin with, but
as you struggle with the clumsy technology of knowledge, remember
those computer disks the size of woks. Clumsy indeed – but they got
us to the moon.

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