Media Education: which epistemological out-line?

Historical-theoretical reflection and situation of the Italian School

Pier Cesare Rivoltella - Catholic University of Milan, Italy.

Summit 2000, Children, Youth and the Media Beyond the Millennium
Toronto, 13-17 May 2000

A discipline or a collective enthusiasm?

A few years ago, the editorial of "Media Development"1 said: "so where are we now with respect to
media education? Is there a defined body of theory and practice associated with this subject or does
it consist of a collective enthusiasm, united in theory but divided in practice?". In this question there
were some implicit convictions:
• the need of linkage, in order to reach an awareness regarding the point of journey in which one
found himself;
• the identification of, say, two "driving forces of Media Education2: one is the theoretical force
(reflection on the models of pedagogy and the teaching paradigms) and the other is the force of
practice (the educative experimentation "on the field");
• the determination to understand whether the ME was only a kind of movement ("a collective
enthusiasm") or a knowledge (a collection of theories and practices).

These three convictions clearly indicate the demand for an epistemological awareness, picture the
situation of all experiences which begin to investigate seriously on the real possibility for claiming
an autonomous existing space, with a proper theme, proper methods and specific goals.

The knowledge of literature on the topic tells us that this awareness today has not yet been reached.
According to us it remains the key starting point from which the fundamental role for ME in the
processes of education, socialisation and democratic growth of the civil societies can be claimed.

Today there exist various reasons that seem to guarantee the right time for a "sound" revision of
ME in an effort to make it become a discipline:

• First of all ME begins to have a history of many years, in which the different "periods" or
stages can be clearly identified, along with their privileged moments of attention, their
educative priorities and methods. There is room to understand where and at which point of the
journey one finds the ME.
• Besides, its diffusion in different countries has deviated in many directions in line with the their
cultural traditions and socio-political needs and thus producing a complexity of approaches
(political, ideological, educative) and paradigms (inoculative; critical reading, images and
awareness). This means that it is possible to enquire about the models, methods, in short, all
that constitute a discipline.
• the reality of the media and their culture, in these years, has changed considerably, particularly
due to the advent and the development of the new communication technologies (NCT), forcing
the ME to revise its role better - this is only to expose the problem if not to talk of the "second
generation" of ME that be spoken in terms of, say, Computer Literacy, or Educatique. At this

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 level it seems to be a must to understand the specificity of ME compare to other approaches, for
example, the Education Technology;
• The complexity of contexts and the need for training/formation made in a manner that the
working and application aspects might dominate the second level of reflection so as to
characterise the ME more as a filed of enthusiasms rather than a discipline (Masterman). Here
arises the question not only to distinguish the two "driving forces" of ME but also to co-
ordinate them.
• To these reasons, verifiable internationally, the difficulty to recognise the palace of ME - in the
case of Italy (not only there) - on the part of the academic world is added precisely, because of
the absence of its subject definition due to its spurious character. This is the problem of the
academic existence of ME: without this academic existence no discipline will get its
recognition.

Looking from these reasons, in our intervention we propose, as aim, to synthesise some useful
observations in order to show the character of ME as a "discipline". We do this in our analysis
making reference, particularly, to the Italian reality - a reality in which the absence of a theoretical
systematisation was such that the many experiences of ME lived for years in different formative
contexts have not yet found ways of forming itself in an conscious framework of synthesis. This is
so despite the fact that the last two years have introduced dynamic reasons for the future
developments.

We will, now, proceed in four phases, all of them are the distinctive aspects of a discipline:
• Subject-matter
• Origin and theoretical outlines
• Historical development
• Methodological aspects

Every science that intends to be so, in fact, has these qualities: being interested in a specific
subject-matter that of its own and not of other sciences; be an outcome of precise theoretical
matrixes and linked to the other sciences in a relationship with other disciplines; describes, well or
bad, a history that can be read at the sign of a progress it realises in the sense of its capacity to
resolve its problems according to different modalities; finally, applies determined methodologies.

Media and formation

What ME is about? What is its aim? Is it about a way of understanding the media and its processes
that interest them from the standpoint of logic of value brought in play? Is the problem about the
development of participation and the sense of democracy? Or, still, is it about preparing the public
to play a critical and active role? Or is it about political commitment, to make counter-
information?
Probably ME has been all these today and much more still. But the hypothesises that we would
like to hold is a very broad one. It tends to take grasp of all these dimensions and to single out a
model out of which the ME can be thought of today, making references also to the dimensions that
are not yet familiar but to be made as valid space of application for the future.
This model can be explained making reference to key a point and to four descriptions.
The key point is the singling out of the subject-matter of ME in all that apply to the
communication reality as information source and opportunity.
To talk about the reality of communion means to make reference in ecological terms to all the
media and to any type of process of communication, from verbal communication to multimedia-
on-line.

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The term formation, instead, means referring in holistic terms to the activity of forming in the
sense of Bildung - that is to say building the integral formation of the person. Understood in this
way, the term does not mean the specific narrow type of instruction (Education), but the
continuing process (tout along la vie) which involves the individual from the first stages of life up
to death.

This wider notion of ME can be specified as follows.

1. First of all, the communication reality can be approached formatively from two different points
of view: instrumental and thematic
An instrumental point of view can be adopted when we think of media as technology by the
means of which or in which the formation can be realised. This assumption was evident when I
showed the film L'attimo fuggente of Peter Weir as an introduction to an update course for
teachers; when I used a talk show, which was on political participation, for stimulating debate
in class; when I make available a mailing list for the purpose of having discussion with the
university students of my course about a problem that arose during the previous lesson.
Instead, my standpoint becomes thematic when the media become the subject-matter based on
which I carry out formation. Traditionally this was always meant two things: learning the
media languages (Media Literacy) and reflecting on their products, messages, genere, authors,
etc. (Media Studies).
Usually these points of view are interpreted by Media Educators in a dialectical way so as to
indicate something to be overcome in the instrumental approach because it is not sufficiently
attentive to the educative process (media centred). While the second approach has been always
honoured for its capacity to have impact on the values-patterns of the individuals, on their
cognitive development (learner centred)3 .
I believe, today it is indispensable to go beyond this logic of juxtaposition. A good Media
Educator is the one who knows how to make use of the media as instruments; who, having
learned the process of communication, transfers the whole education within the area
constructed by the media. Therefore, the instrumental and thematic points of view do not
constitute options to choose, but they are the two aspects of one and the same commitment:
Media Education is both using the communication for formation (instrumental point of view)
and doing formation to communication (thematic point of view).

2. A second useful description for understanding what we intend when we talk of ME is the type
of attention. Here again we can distinguish between two types of approach: one is attentive to
the expressive dimension and the other is critical dimension. As we know from the history of
ME, it is attention which has given room for further logical argumentation.

On the one side, we find a group of people who support the Media Education workshops in
order to emphasise the practical and operational dimension. This recovers the position of the
pedagogical activism and the enlightened experience of some pioneers as Freinet. This trend
takes shape in the long tradition of interventions which involve everything such as the
realisation of newspaper in class, audio-visual production and construction of hyper texts.
Instead, on the other there are people for whom the priority is the construction of critical sense
in the receiver. The theoretical background and formation of these Media Educators is above
all semiotics: it draws on the textual models of Barthes and compares with Cultural Studies
perspectives. Returning to didactics on the part of this theory recovery is nothing but the
critical reading of messages, their deconstruction / reconstruction, and the cultural analysis.

Also here, like in the previous instance, there is a need to think not in terms of aut aut, but of et
et. Doing Media Education would mean teaching to communicate - and therefore it is

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 something to "do-with-the-media" - but it means also to educate towards a correct relationship
with the communication messages. As in the literacy programme wherein one not only learns
to read but also to write - so also with the media: "to read and write the media" is a balanced
view of media education.

3. A third description by which we can approach the media in the formation are the working
levels. This means returning to the input from where we began: is ME a collection of practicals
or also theory? The answer is: both.
A more natural working level for ME is the educative praxis which includes creativity,
capacity for planning, inclination for teaching and feeling of empathy. These are the aspects
which cannot be learned by any educator from books - so say the trends of current didactics.
These trends, after the influence of behaviourism and instructionism, go to establish
themselves on the positions of neo-Aristotlianism when they affirm that teaching is basically
an habitus, that is to say practical wisdom acquired by doing. The doing of education puts the
educator daily in the need of making micro-decisions that contrast with the process set by him
at the time of planning and ask for immediate responses: here there is neither space nor time
for theoretical reflection; the doing takes first place.

All along, this does not mean that theoretical moment has no importance. This functions at
least in three directions in relation to doing exercises / activities.:
• It constructs the scenario which the educator cannot ignore. There is no educative praxis,
as Bruner4 explained well, that does not move from a pedagogy which is more or less
implicit: basically we are all (at least at first) conditioned by our studies, our readings and
by our experiences. A theory of ME is, I repeat, more or less implicit: we, all of us, have it
in our head;
• It must constitute the meta-reflective moment in which the educator reaches an awareness
regarding the methodology and the means to be used in education. To do theory in ME
must mean emphasising the process, reasoning out on the experiences, evaluating them,
finding right channels and modalities.
• Finally, the theory has to constitute also permanence in the up-dating activity of the Media
Educator. It means that he has to meet daily with the models, the hypotheses, the
methodologies that the research proposes them; a meeting which is capable to trigger off
meta-reflection and to promote determination for change.

4. The last description is about the area of intervention. One who does ME is accustomed to
think in terms of school and, in particular, the primary stages of schooling as the working area
taken for granted for ME. This manner of thinking is typically European or North-American. If
we look at the Latin-American Movement, for example, we realise that ME does not have the
school as its only privileged place. It is actually meant for the adults. In the basic community
movements ME becomes political education, space for exercising divergent thinking, time for
human development.
This remark makes us to understand one important thing: the fact that our tradition lead us to
think of ME in the area of school does not necessarily mean it is the only area for doing the
ME. The changed socio-cultural and productive conditions of our time reminds us, in fact, to
create space for ME also in other areas:
• The areas of outside school: that is to say all the reality of experience that the didactics
today call "decentralised teaching places", like the entertainment centres, the museum, the
library. I ask: can the professional educators and the socio-cultural animators who work in
these areas today not have the competence of ME?
• We can think of the non-profit organisations, social structures. We can include in this all
the socio-educative agencies working for and assisting people in difficulty (psychiatric

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 patients, ex-drug addicts, ex-alcoholics, prisoners, young people at risk). Let us think in
what way the media can offer educative richness to these contexts. Can we not propose that
in the training of workers there be a right place for ME or that the Media Educator
becomes part of the team of educators involved in these contexts.
• A third area is that of profit and business making ones. At this level there are two aspects
that are to be understood. One is the process of production which is getting transformed
more in the sense of assuming new technologies and knowledge about the proper ambient.
The worker is always a symbolic worker, a worker of knowledge who is asked to meet
with the new technologies, mange them, and use their languages.
The other aspect of input comes from the filed of business training in which the adoption of
theatre techniques (as the role-play and the simulation) and of multi-media instruments
(one can think of the different forms of web training) indicate in the direction of a change
wherein the traditional class room techniques of management will be changed into a
multimedia set-up.
Once again we ask ourselves: whether every single worker, in as much as a worker in a
society of knowledge, should not be a media educated himself; whether the formator of
2000, by force of multi-media, must not be a Media Educator.

The prospect that emerges from all what has been said is certainly very ambitious. As it is
understood it is not so much about how the ME can become part of school curriculum or of
learning in the society but rather how it is possible to do without it. In this sense the hypothesis
we like to advance is that Media Education can be accredited as a new evolving stage of
formation: it is like saying that education, teaching and formation of the next century cannot
but be thought of as media processes in the different ways as we have said above.

Description Type Aspects

Point of view Instrumental Media for formation
------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------
Thematic Formation to the use of media
Attention Expressive Writing with media
------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------
Critical Reading the media
Working level Practical Reflection on media at the level of:
------------------------------------------- - Scenario
Theoretical - meta-reflection on the processes
- up-dating
Area of intervention School Formal education
------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------
Extra school (museum, theatre, library) socio-cultural animation
-------------------------------------------
Non profit sectors (working for people in ---------------------------------------
difficulty, assistance) education to social-service
-------------------------------------------
Profit (firms, training) ---------------------------------------
professional training

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 Origin and boundaries

On the basis of the "broader" idea of ME that we have just now established, it will be possible
now to reflect closely on the theoretical configuration of this discipline indicating the
background scenario, constituted by the meeting of the communication sciences and of
education. Within this logic the theoretical dues of ME (Semiotics, Cultural Studies,
Sociology, Pedagogy, Didactics) and its subject boundaries (instructional technology,
organisational culture) can be pointed out.

Let us start from the background. Talking to those students taking Masters degree in ME of the
Catholic University of Milan5, Geneviève Jacquinot pointed out the cross-cutting aspect of the
sciences of education and of communication. With this terminology an attempt is made to
make reference to their aspects of science boundaries, which import aspects and characteristics
of other sciences taking a spurious outlines of subject that is not often acceptable to the
academic circles accustomed to well defined subjects both in their aim and in their
methodology.
Connecting it this way from this point of view means not considering ME anymore as an
"baggage-discipline", in which anything can be put in, but as a "frontier-discipline" capable of
getting supports both from the sciences of communication and education. From the
communication science, Media Education changes the research methods, receives indications
to consider Media Education as a terrain of negotiation; from the sciences of education, a
frame for utility (capacity to place the knowledge in view) and a space for confrontation and
reflection6.

This cross-cutting nature, this frontier position between the sciences of communication and of
education is clearly seen also when we reflect on the theoretical debts of ME, which can be
identified in both the directions.
In the field of social communication there are at least three areas of research that influence the
work of the Media Educators.
• semiotics, from Roland Barthes to Umberto Eco, from whom ME gets, in particular, the
methodology for the analysis of texts (Cf. below);
• the sociology of communication, its orientations (from Bullet Theory, Cultivation Theory
of Gerbner to the Reception Theory) have always conditioned the way in which the Media
Educators thought of the consumption practices and the importance of ME in the formation
of these practices;
• cultural Studies (Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams), finally, constitute a sort of theoretical
hinge between semiotics and the sociological approach placing the coding-decoding of the
message in relation with the productive logic and their ideological enrolment (thanks to the
re-conceptualisation of some neo-Marxists categories, Gramsci's hegemony or ideological
instrument of state of Althusser).

So also the filed of "recovery" which the ME operates from the sciences of education has been
articulated:
• first of all, there is a strong debit regarding the pedagogical research tradition that theorises
the importance of doing particles / exercises in education. However, with the logical
arguments and clear differences of the pedagogical activism of Dewey, the Freinet's point
of view, the pedagogy of the oppressors of Freire (the reference point discussed mainly by
the south-American Media Educators) can be cited;

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• all the experiences of those educators who have theorised a fundamental role for the media
languages in the educative works, from the forerunner Comenius to Freinet, tutelary deity
of the Print media in class, have "impact" on the ME;
• then, of course, ME owes very much to the didactics that has been traditionally always
self-interpreted as a science of communication dedicating vast area to the role of media as
symbolical mediators in the educative process - that is to say as instruments through which
the rapport can be created between the persons and the values out of which education
intends to produce socialisation.
Today, Media Education, while preserving this "traditional" identity, sees the need to revise
itself in a socio-cultural context that is becoming bigger and changing rapidly. There are two
important aspects in this change: the role of the new technologies that is always becoming
crucial (NTC) and the imposing business model as interpretative paradigm of the different
human experiences. These aspects have given greater strategic discipline-like function as the
Technology for Instruction and as the Organisational theory which as for its title can be
considered frontier disciplines regarding ME.

The Technology for Instruction can be understood, say, as hard-ware of ME: this coincides
with it from the point of view of what has been said as being "instrumental". It reflects on the
media technologies in as much as they are supports / areas of understanding. The
Organisational Theory, established in the business context during the Taylorist period as
instrument of diagnosis and to maximise the product, is now becoming the orientation
approach for the different sectors of our social system, from school to non profit sector: from
the Organisational Theory ME can adapt the systematic approach for the planning of
situations, techniques and models.
Thus, the concept of Media Educator can be confirmed, as we have explained. He is not only
educator, but also expert in multimedia and formation programmer.

The Research Traditions

Many contributions have been made in constructing the history of ME7. We, rather, prefer to
offer just a few useful points in order to have a general idea of the experiences done till today.
To do this we will follow some guiding principles.

The first of these principles is the attention given by the Media Educators as regards the media
specifics. It is easy to observe how this already consents to single out some "stages" / periods /
phases of ME.
The period of print medium, for example, is the first one through which the ME may have
gone through. In 1930s, while making its first steps in the English speaking countries, ME is
said to be about the comic-books, romantic novels - in other words it is about the products of
the nascent cultural industry which confronts with the products of the high culture, of the
literary tradition in order to create for each one grater quality-space and greater meaning.
In 1960s (perhaps already at the end of 1950s) ME discovers the cinema. The reasons for this
have to be found in the theoretical work of two magazines like the "Cahiers du Cinéma" and
"Screen" which paved the way for the cinema to be recognised as an art medium. Some aspects
already indicate in this direction - the choice of literary subjects, the nature of narrative, the
type of festive consumption -: to these the "Cahiers" add full recognition of authorship to the
directors (Rossellini can be considered "author" just like Faulkner or Proust) and "Screen"
begins to use for cinema the same means that criticism was using for literature (particularly,
the analysis of ideology and psychoanalysis) making the base for the developing of film
analysis.

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With the coming of television as mass consumption (in Italy it coincides with 1974, date that
indicates the end to the state television monopoly and the birth of the first commercial
television) ME discovers television as its new object of study which remains, all along 1980,
the true and proper focus of major part of intervention. The aspect that makes the television
very interesting to the educators is the its persuasive nature as medium, its pervading presence
in the houses, its capacity to exercise important social and cultural functions: the television is a
central story-telling system8, a device for ritual, an opportunity for socialisation, an important
arena for cultural negotiation and for emotive investment. Television, then, is violent; it
exhibits explicitly the topics of sexuality, promotes consumerism through advertising; it is also
given to children. In brief, there is a series of aspects that make the television as the object of
preferential attention of the Media Educators: in 1980s, teaching the media would mean almost
nothing but teaching the medium of television.
It is in 1980s, the computer begins to have an import place both in the social practices and in
the daily school teaching / learning9. This phenomenon is stressed during 1990s only to
explode definitively with the diffusion of all pervading internet. Today the Internet - I hope it
is - taking over the place of television, because it seems to propose to the educators the same
problems of television but certainly at a more dangerous level. During the 1990s ME gradually
started to become as Computer Education (although it does not mean that today it does not
continue to include the print medium, cinema and television).

A second adaptable guiding principle in the historical reconstruction is the privilege that Media
Education has given to some methodologies rather than others. From this point of view it is
possible in 1980s to single out a caesura of the time in the approaches of ME, that which
brings from important methodologies substantially to the analysis of message (text oriented) a
methodology always more interesting, instead, to the real consumerism of these messages from
the part of the public (reader oriented). We will come to these two important types of
approaches in ME, soon.

Finally, a last guiding principle, is made by singling out of the different periods of ME in
relation with the dominance exercised in that precise historical moment by a particular
theoretical model. The frame-work of these models is now consolidated at the level of
scientific literature and agrees to single out four types of approaches to ME:

• The inoculative approach was the first one to be adopted already in 1960s. The metaphor
makes reference to the function of vaccination which was made known to education in the
order of media and responds to the other metaphor like the hypodermic model, according
to which the effects of the media on the public were gauged (starting from 1930). The
media inject in the spectator their ideologies in such a way that the spectator is unable to do
anything. In this case education is designed to provide protection against these effects. All
this reflects a negative idea of the media and gives a defensive and projectionist impression
about education.
• The inoculative approach was followed by the popular arts paradigm10. This model went
beyond the idea of inoculation and maintained in itself basically the discriminative aspect.
Film was considered to be a medium worthy of attention in schools. It mainly aimed at
telling the difference between the good and the bad film, the authentic and shoddy one; and
distinguishing from the commercial and exploitative films.
• 1970s were marked with the model of critical reading. This is the period which concerns
more the need of semiotics. The result is a strong orientation to the text of the educative
work and the consecration of the textual analysis. The directions in which this means is
made use of are multiple: from the analysis of palimpsest to the analysis of genres, from
the narrative analysis to the symbolic analysis, from the analysis of codes to that of the

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 stereotypes. It is during this period some important principles of ME are defined: the
principle of the non-transparency of the media, the character of constructing mediated
messages, the construction of critical thinking as ultimate end of the educative work with
the media.
• The knowledge that this type of approach ending up with sacrificing the real profile of the
reader in concomitance with the pragmatic slant, which all through the period (1980s)
concerns the sciences of communication (cf. below), takes the Media Educators to develop
a wider approach to the media drawing on the reflection of the social studies. There are
two things in particular to be corrected: the integration of the exclusivity of the text with
attention to productive contexts, their value inscription, the ideological logic to go about; a
new centrality of the reader wherein his consuming habits and the spontaneous ways of
interpreting of texts to re-construct the evaluation charts and his subcultures are analysed.

Obviously the above time-phases we have constructed basing on these guiding-principles must
not be considered as water-tight compartments and above all this should not make one feel that
after 1960s, for example, that there was no inoculative approach or that till today there are no
Media Educators who exclusively carry out the textual analysis. The field is complex: all these
elements discussed above often co-exist with one another. There is not one ME, but there are
many. This certainly constitutes richness, but in the long run it could make the process of
making the ME, as a proposed subject, very difficult. Therefore, the word order, could be this
way: let us reduce the complexity, let us define the object, methods and paradigms of ME
better.

Figure 1 - the historical axis of ME

1930 1960 1970 1080

Inoculative Approach Popular Arts Critical Reading Social Studies

Print

Cinema

Television

Computer, Internet

Textual analysis

Consumption analysis

In this scheme the different paradigms adopted by ME are visualised in one single chart. The media that are
presented here are the ones which the ME has reflected upon and the types of methodological means that have
been used. The extension of the arrows indicate the general outlines the temporal areas covered. It has to be noted
how the various media and methodologies continue to be studied and applied practically till today. So also the
four successive paradigms are not to be thought of in terms of mutual exclusion (the successive one puts aside the
previous one) but of accumulation (the previous one carries on and coexists with the successive one).

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 Texts and Consumption

The last describing factor that we singled out in order to define the status of science of ME is
that of the method. In the preceding paragraphs we have already mentioned about the possible
standard-work-methodologies of the Media Educators. It is the analysis of the text and the
analysis of consumption. Let us, now, try to say something more about that.

1. ME meets the textual analysis, made possible by both Barthes and Eco11, obtaining two
views of works. The first one is the idea that the media may be considered to be "opaque", that
is, their representation of the reality may not be natural but the result of the activity of the
enunciating subject. The second indication is the enlargement of the concept of textuality so as
to include the more prosaic manifestations of the mass media culture: with these same means
the both the analysis of the literary texts and the images of Franchi and Ingrassia can be
realised (as suggested by Eco in the Absent structure12), like a plate of fried potatoes, a
meeting of catch or a strip-tease (according to the indication of Barthes in Mythologies13).

This double instance - which takes shape in ME, especially, in the narrative analysis and in the
analysis of codes - undergoes a double correction during 1970s and 1980s. In 1097, the
correction, of course, was offered by the British Cultural Studies, in particular, by Stuart Hall
and Raymond Williams. The merit for having recognised the importance of the economy and
political apparatus in the process of meaning production, regarding the mass media, is
attributed to these authors. Regaining the texts of neo-Marxism, Hall and Williams theorise the
media reality as the symbolic space of negotiation of meanings in which the cultural hegemony
is in play in a particular society. This makes in such way that the analysis (to the extend of
running the risk of isolating the text from its context) - which until now stressed in an
excessive way the textual dimension - takes into consideration the institutional dimension: the
reasons of economy and politics (often snubbed by the european theorists) appear on the
foreground and direct the textual analysis in "ideological" sense.

But the experience of the Cultural Studies suggests also a second important correction of the
standard models of the textual analysis. To say that the media are a space of symbolical
negotiation, in fact, implies assuming a new point of view on the textuality: it is not considered
anymore as a message (dictum), but as an act of Communicaiton (dicere). From this radical
change of view the pragmatic approaches to the text become responsible all through 1980s. In
these, the attention of the analyst goes to the strategies, rather than to the structures from which
the text is made, with the aim to make his spectator: a text is not only an object of
communication, but a system of instruction for use which is handed to the reader, so that he
can make use of it. As Umberto Eco says: <<If a text begins with "Once upon a time there was
a…", it gives a signal which immediately selections the proper reader model, which should be
a child, or someone who is ready to accept a story that may go beyond the common sense14>>.

From all these points we can say that doing textual analysis in ME would mean taking into
considerations three fundamental dimensions:
• the textual dimension (grammatical elements, codes, narrative structures);
• the institutional dimension (context of economy, politics, ideological entries);
• the pragmatic dimension (strategies of communication, enunciating pact15).

2. To reduce ME to textual analysis - even though with the correctives of the Cultural Studies
and of the pragmatics - would be mean only risks. The Media Educators themselves have
realised this in two ways:

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• above all, the risk of perpetuating the models of social production typical of the traditional
didactics. In fact, it is taken for granted that teaching to do textual analysis may end up in
making itself in the teaching of and analysing the texts as we analyse them. This means an
excessive stress of the centrality of the educator. Therefore it does not create autonomy but
dependence.
• the other risk is that while working exclusively on the texts, the culture of the one who
reads and analyses may be forgotten, thus, losing sight of the natural processes of
approaches and of evaluation of the texts, in the artificial laboratory of the analysis
To remedy these limits to the textual analysis, from 1980s onwards the methodologies of
ethnography type, transformed by the social sciences, are added in a convincing way (the
participant observation, the focus group or the life stories). These methodologies are very
attentive more to the profiles of the readers and to their practical ways of getting to the texts
rather than the text itself.
These methodologies seem to have received two types of applications:
• the so-called psychographic approach ( like in some experiences of Quinn and McMahon)
in which to propose an audio-visual text to a class means to be able use it as a means of
psycho-social diagnosis; that is, to bring out expectations, beliefs and values of the every
student;
• the cultural approach, in which to ask the students to draw up a classification of their TV
or preferred musical programs means finding out find out the good ones, the pre-
understanding and their sub-cultural memberships16.

3. Therefore, in the media aid-box of the Media Educator, there should be place not only for
semiotic devices (for doing textual analysis), but also for ethnographic devices (for doing the
analysis of consumption). Are they sufficient? Or do we think that there is a need for other
competencies, other knowledge about methodologies?
If we put ourselves into the "broader" perspective that we suggested at the beginning of this
sharing, I believe that, at least, three other competencies of methodology can be integrated into
the standard equipment of the Media Educator:
• the knowledge of the methods of preparation and the management of formative processes
supported by the technologies. We intend, in particular, the capacity for managing
construction processes of hypermedia objects and of organising telematic net-work for co-
operation and co-programming on line;
• the knowledge of the methods of programming of the formative process and of the
management of research in the educative filed (ex. the action research);
• the technical knowledge for managing groups and of organising of work with groups.

A Masters degree in Media Education

The aim that has been said at the beginning, that is, the defining of the epistemological status
of Media Education, has made us to describe an articulated outline built on three basic
convictions:
• the idea that Media Education be a "forefront-subject matter", which cuts into the areas of
gap between the sciences of education and of communication, and draws on the
heterogeneous contributions: semiotics, didactics, Cultural Studies, Education Technology,
organisational theories etc.;
• the idea that Media Education be an subject of wider spectrum, which constitutes a new
field of formation for the new Millennium, not only in the traditional area of school, but
also in the extra-school curriculum, the profit and the non-profit making sectors alike;
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• the idea that ME be a flexible subject, which draws on the contributions of methodologies
of different learning and puts into play at same time the multiple identities that are
instrumental and technical, theoretical and operational, etc.

In the concluding part, we shall try to indicate the possible choices and spaces for the purposes
of consolidating this disciplinary awareness and for obtaining its recognition within the
Sciences of Education rather than of Communication. We can do this presenting the project of
Master in Media Education which the Catholic University of Milan intends to set out for the
academic year 2000-200117 in collaboration with the MED (Italian Association for the
Education of Media and of Communication)

____________________________________________________________________________

1. INSTITUTION

1.1. The Catholic University of Milan introduces a Course of scientific perfection (Masters
degree) in Media Education. With this terminology, already now codified by the
countries also outside the English speaking regions, we mean a particular area of the
sciences of education, formation and communication science which consists in producing
reflection and working strategies according to the media understood as integral resource
for the formative intervention.

1.2. The reasons that lead to this launching will have to be found:
• in the social presence of the media, in their socio-cultural relevance, in their problematic
aspects that they present on the educative and deontological levels;
• in the existence of a strong tradition of study and research on this disciplinary area in the
european and outside-european context. In this regard our country seems to have a gap that
needs to be bridged.
• in the need of formation which comes from school, other educative agencies and from the
profit making sectors - above all the computer and net-work technologies - about which the
media are promoting a relevant change that demands competencies and special
professional outlines in order to manage it in a better way;
• in the experience that is already well developed in the academic year 1999/2000 through a
specialisation course of post-graduation which now finds, in the economy of the
autonomous didactics of the universities, the space for a stable collocation as Masters
degree (of first or second level).

1.3. The Masters degree foresees a training merit fixed in 60 credits18.

2. OBJECTIVES OF FORMATION
2.1. Masters degree in Media Education proposes to prepare Media Educators who will be
professionally capable of working readily in an interdisciplinary way in the forefront
areas between the media and the formative processes, in schools, extra-school and in
diverse forms of the profit making sectors.
Specifically, it deals with training professional figures of advanced degree level:
• to work with media and the new technologies in school, extra-school and in the profit
making sectors;
• to activate and run formative processes in mass media and multimedia communication
technologies.

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2.2. The training experience realised intends to strengthen the theoretical horizons with the
possession of the means of mass media and multimedia commutations, the attitude to
research with the cultural animation and the educative programming. Consequently, the
co-operation among institutions, the integration between disciplines and technologies, and
the cultural pedagogical synergy con with the mass media culture, constitute the details.

2.3. Access to media and technologies, also at the time of teaching, is considered
fundamental. It is expressed through the pre-disposition towards on-line services for self-
training (lesson schemes, down-loadable materials, useful web-site links), the
communication formation (FAQ, direct contact line with the teacher) and the co-operative
training (newsgroups, group activities).

3. CURRICULUM AND FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES

3.1. Masters degree foresees:

• formative activities in the subject areas that characterise the sciences of education and of
communication;
• formative actives related to the cultural contest and to the interdisciplinary training;
• formative activities related to the preparation for the final test;
• practical activities of formation and orientation.

3.2. Curriculum specifications, spread over two semesters, include:

• institutional courses (40 credits, of which 10 go for classroom didactics);
• cross-curriculum modules (5 credits, of which 2 go for classroom didactics);
• workshops (3 credits);
• practical activities of formation (5 credits).

3.2.1. Regarding the institutional courses (each requires 30 hours of classroom teaching).
They are done in the educational and communication subject areas:

a) Area of communication.
Sociology of communication and culture
Theory and techniques of mass communication
Theory and techniques of audio-visual languages
Methodology of search

b) Area of education
Pedagogy of communication
Technology of instruction / education
Didactics
Theory and techniques of animation

3.2.2. To the institutional courses, the following cross-curricular courses are added (each
module needs 10/15 hours of classroom teaching). These courses require the integration of
interdisciplinary competence insured by other areas:

Ethics of communication and Professional deontology

Educative programmes in the media
Techniques for group management
Evaluation methods in Media Education

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 3.2.3. For the completion of the theoretical preparation the following work-shops are needed:
Media language workshops and multimedia programming
Workshops on programming didactics
Workshops on the analysis of audio-visual texts

3.2.4. The formative practical training is done in the second semester for a total of 5
credits. It is subject to a tutorship and has the characteristic of a professional internship. Its
final scope can be that of writing a paper on the specialisation.
The total credits for formation requested for the activities of practical training include the
occasions of meeting with the professional world, days of conventions and the guided
experiences.

3.3. The credits corresponding to each of the formative activities indicated are acquired by the
student:
• for the institutional courses, by passing the exam;
• for the cross-curricular modules, by writing the required papers;
• for the work-shops and practical training, by producing the respective audio-visual,
multimedia materials and by presenting a report on the experience.

3.4. The title Master of Science is obtained through the realisation of a project in Media Education
in the form of a written paper and / or a multimedia work which has to be discussed before a
commission. The way of realising it foresees a tutorship of methodology and it gives a right to
attain 7 credits.
1
42, (1995), 2, p.2.
2
From now on Media Education stands for ME.
3
We ourselves have thought for long in this antithetical way the rapport between the two points of view. Cfr. P.C.
Rivoltella, Mass Media e nuove tecnologie: opportunità formative in una società che cambia, <<Vita e Pensiero>>, 7-8,
July- August 1997, pp.508-527.
4
J. Bruner, The Culture of Education, Harvard University Press, Harvard 1996.
5
G. Jacquinot, Scienze dell'educazione e Scienze della comunicazione in dialogo, Milano, 10-11 September 1999,
mimeo. On the theme, Jacquinot had already spoken in Naples, during the Meeting Communication and Education.
Meeting between two cultures (26-27 March 1999). On this occasion his contribution (Le choc des cultures: entre
Jansenisme pègogique et hèdonisme culturel) reflected in a particular way on the apparent non-reconciliation of the two
cultures: that of the school, giansenist because it's demanding, is characterised by work, fatigue; that of the media,
hedonist because it's spectacular, is characterised by frivolity and by non-involvement of consumption. The text of the
intervention and the other interventions of the meeting are due to be published.
6
On these aspects: P.C. Rivoltella, Comunicazione ed educazione: "interferenze". Linee per l'analisi di un incontro
possibile, Naples, 26 March 1999, Mimeo.
7
Among the various contributions: J. Gonnet, Education et Mèdias, PUF, Paris 1997; A. Graviz, Media Education as a
Discipline, Paper for the International Congress of Media Education, S. Paolo; L. Masterman, A Rationale for Media
Education, in F. Mariet, L. Masterman, ed., Media Education in 1990's Europe, Council of Europe, 1994; B. Walsh, A
Brief Hisotry of Media Education. In Internet, URL:
http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/FA/MLArticleFolder/briefhistm.html.
8
The definition is that which is given by Roger Silverstone. Cfr.: The Message of television. Myth and narrative in
contemporary culture, Heinemann Educational Books, London 1981; Television, myth and culture, <<Resaux>>, 44/45,
November-February, 1989-1990.
9
Cfr. A. Calvani, I nuovi media nella scuola, Carocci, Rome 1999.
10
Cfr. S. Hall, P. Whannel, The Popular Arts, Hutchinson, London 1964.
11
Cfr. Masterman, A rationale, cit.
12
U. Eco, La struttura assente, Bompiani, Milano 1968.
13
R. Barthes, Mythologies, Editions de Seuil, Paris 1957.
14
U. Eco, Sei passeggiate nei boschi narrativi, Bompiani, Milano 1995, p.11.

14
15
A complete panoramic view of the problems of the textual analysis in the formative processes can be found in: P.
C.Rivoltella, L'audiovisivo e la formazione. Metodi per l'analisi, CEDAM, Padova 1998.
16
Cfr. B. Duncan, Mass Media and popular Culture, Harcourt Brace, Toronto 1988.
17
Who takes this Masters course naturally makes the project and will be the scientific Co-ordinator.
1818
One single credit, according to the reformed term of the Italian University, is equal to 25 hours of work completed
from the part of the student. These hours can be attributed to the hours of lessons, of work-shops, of practical training,
of personal study and of the writing of dissertation.

15