Media literacy and transmedia storytelling

Abstract

n the United Kingdom there is a debate about how media studies should be taught to 16 to 18 year olds. Should they be studying the artefacts as literature students do with canonical readings of Austen and Shakespeare or the institutions and hegemonic structures of the means of production? If they are to study artefacts then what artefacts should these be? BBC news and the much exported period drama Downton Abbey or popular television franchises which have worldwide take-up such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (ITV 1998-) The problem with this debate is that it misunderstands the ontological basis of media studies. Media studies have claimed the realms of television, newspapers, cinema, radio and audiovisual texts, their forms, the industries that produce them and the means of distribution and consumption as its object of study. New media researchers have added identity, interactivity, geolocation, engagement, affectivity, sharing, creativity and fan crowd and other forms of online and real life community building through new communications technologies. Ontologically we accept as a basis of our field that as humans we construct and visualize stories – both from fact and fiction – to make sense of the world around us and that by analysing and deconstructing these narratives as researchers we review, challenge or change erroneous or simply dominant knowledge paradigms.