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I’ve always believed that a man’s life passes through the various stages of situation comedy: from 16 to 30 are the ‘Frank Spencer years’ when he is a child-like idiot; from 30 to 40 constitute the ‘David Brent period’ when he is convinced he is still at the cutting edge despite all evidence to the contrary; from 40 to 55 he becomes like Basil Fawlty, full of neurosis and bile, before finally succumbing to the bitterness and disillusionment of the Victor Meldrew years.
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Media Studies is Shit 
Yo, C.
New Union Post
Click to access union_post_oct_2010.pdf
Enjoy,
John.
PS: Don’t forget this: http://www.ictuni.org/uploads/67b098da-831b-4ef7-ba01-f5111705d2bc/CorpoTaxlores.pdf, it is especially current.
And you might enjoy this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/oct/26/paul-ogrady-government-monkey
Thanks for that John. Very much appreciated.
Love your blog! Made me chuckle…lots. Just started a blog for A-Level and GCSE students. Take a look?
Hello Mrs W.
Good to hear from you. Good luck with the new blog. I’ll keep in touch.
Rab
Hello, I am trying to find the blog you wrote about consumerism in education where it mentions something like”it’s not just an education, but an russell group education” I want to use it for a
reference so I can vent my anger on government policies. I am having trouble finding it on this website
after looking for a long time. Thanks.
Hi Chris
Here’s the quote below and the full post is here:
The lie at the heart of Browne is that consumerism guarantees quality and therefore commodifying learning and knowledge will make HE better for all. It’s an argument that is difficult to sustain. Think of supermarkets, the citadels of consumerism, for instance. Quality for such retail giants is relative, with some supermarkets catering for the cheap and cheerful end of the market, where ‘every little helps’, while others can make their pitch in terms of high quality produce. (This isn’t just an education. This is a Russell Group education.) Like supermarkets, universities will be stratified and students will internalise what every supermarket customer knows in his or her heart, you get what you pay for. Nobody buys an Asda pudding and expects M&S flavour, just as people with little money and no expectation of ever being rich will get used to the educational equivalent of Ryanair.
Greetings! Just spotted your entertaining and thought-provoking site and love that title! I’ve just started my very first blog, aimed mostly at the innocents who are in media studies or thinking of entering the world of television. The plan is to tell ’em what it’s really like – from the mouths of those who have been there, done that.
The blog is newborn and would appreciate any support it can get so hope you don’t mind me alerting to you to it. If you think it worthy I’d be honoured to be on your blog roll.
Shu
I’ve looked at your blog. I want to be involved in the media industry but as a freelance photographer, just self-taught. After reading the ‘real life of a t.v. runner’ it made me
feel ‘fire in my blood’.
Hi Chris – and my apologies for being nearly two months late in responding! Working in TV can be – well…. shit, I suppose! But then again it can also be interesting, exciting, stressful, fun, enlightening, stressful, entertaining, stressful, pressurised, stressful, exploitative, um… stimulating! And stressful… Question is: Are you tough enough?!
Oh, and today’s post was is Media Studies Shit?
Well OK – it was ‘Do you need a degree to get a job in TV’.
I can guess Rab;’s answer….
“Question is: Are you tough enough?!” I work at a Hospital which includes being organised, being independent when required and able to work in team and very stressful circumstances.
Is that a good answer or the kind of replies you hear all the time? Just Curious!
Good answer, I reckon! It’s having the sort of personality that can deal with stress that arises from tight deadlines, long hours and other peoples; tension levels, Sounds like a hospital would be very good training!
Are you wanting to get into TV? Just curious….
Welcome Shu,
As a general rule I don’t approve of any body ‘wanting to work’ for the television of any other employer for that matter. – working being the curse of the drinking classes and all that. But on this occasion I’ll ad So You Want to Work in Television to the blog roll. I’ll put something out on Twitter also.
Good Luck,
Rab
You are most kind and I fully sympathise with your attitude to work. Personally I avoid it wherever possible, but there are some strange souls who think working in television if glamorous, fun and exciting. I feel it my duty to explain it is otherwise….
Mucho gracias!
shu
… that should have read Muchos gracias…… I think ……
…and ‘is glamorous’ not ‘if’…… writing is obviously not my strong point….
Hello Rab I need some advice please. I’m trying to do some research on two issues
1) UK UNCUT I want to Counter-Argument Tory Government attack against
them. How should I research to gather facts? Anything beyond obviously ‘googling’
as not all web sources can be reliable or verified that I should do?
2) Recommended ‘reading list’ of books (10-12 books) I should read relating to
contemporary ‘working class’ issues and struggles in 21st century
I have NOT done research in a long time and want to learn but I just
need some advice of where to start looking…
Much appreciated Chris
Hi Chris, I’m away at the moment, so have no access to materials. Once I get home. I’ll put some stuff together. Probably Sunday.
Hi Chris,
With regards books on class, to be frank, there have been precious few of any not in recent years, certainly in the academic circles I travel. The absence in itself is interesting. With the notion of capitalist infallibility, academics have shifted their attention to questions of gender, race and sexuality. But there a few books: Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change, a collection edited by Sally Munt. Also there’s Owen Jones recent book Chavs.
But really it’s in the academic journal articles that you can begin to see the question of class emerging again. If you following some of the links on some of the previous posts they’ll take you to this material.
John Goldthorpe, the sociologist, is worth googling as well. Some of his work is available on-line and he seems to have been pretty constant in his attention to class over the years.
I’m beginning to pay more attention to class myself. You’ll probably see this reflected in the blog, so as I find and read stuff myself I’ll write about it and post it up.
As for UKUCUT? I don’t really know where to start. I haven’t really been following the Tory’s criticisms of them. What have they been saying?
During the student riots last year they were accused of violence and working in collaboration with the so called black bloc by David Cameron without any proof. I think this was done to discredit them so they would not draw attention to many Tories links to big business.
Interestingly I’m reading book on Spanish Civil War and during the siege of Madrid Anarchists and Socialists commandeered Banks, shops, hotels and other business for Hospitals, Schools, the homeless similar to how UKUNCUT have done in London by turning banks into Hospitals. There is a lot of class politics in book.
I will check out the writers you recommended.Are there any academic journals related to class worth looking at?
I don’t know of any journals that look at class specifically, but Historical Materialism might be worth looking at. It’s dedicated to Marxist analysis.