Two recent reports cast further light on young people’s increasing disengagement from mainstream news media.
Category Archives: audiences
When is a children’s comic subversive?
The Beano, the UK’s longest-running children’s comic, is often celebrated as ‘subversive’. But what does such a claim really mean?
Adult fans, children’s culture: the curious case of My Little Pony
What’s going on for adult fans of children’s culture? Some thoughts about the bronies, and other adult fans of My Little Pony.
Disinfecting Disney? Tackling the history of representation
The Disney Corporation is putting advisory messages about racial stereotyping on some of its historical films and TV shows. How should we deal with problematic representations from the past?
Teaching Culture: The Missionary Position
The attempt to civilize the uncultured masses is coming back into style. I look back to the Leavisite approach to popular culture, and its place in the history of English teaching.
Teaching social media 4: audiences
A critical media education approach: using the concept of audiences to teach about social media.
Radicalisation, social media and young people
There is growing concern about the role of social media in ‘radicalising’ your people. But the government’s response to this phenomenon is contradictory and likely to prove ineffective. Here’s why we need a more thoughtful approach.
Reading Rihanna: the burden of representation
Rihanna’s latest video, and the debate that it has provoked, raises some challenging questions about how we understand the concept of representation, and how we might teach about it.