Doing Media Studies: reflections on an unruly discipline

Media studies and its related areas such as communications, cultural studies and film studies are frequently the subjects of ill-informed attack, both inside and outside the academy. This article offers a series of reflections on some of the key issues facing the subject area including its status and disciplinary formation, the tensions and possibilities of the theory/practice mix on many courses, questions of vocationalism and the views of students. Although the article tries to set the record straight in some areas, it is essentially a personal and sometimes polemical view which seeks to generate further discussion.