New Education for New Media

[stevejones]

What should a degree in "New Media" look like? What would the curriculum be? What kinds of topics should be covered? What is the best preparation for a career in new media? Similarly, what is the best preparation for working and living with new media in the workplace and world? Who should offer such a degree, what kind of institution (university, community college, for-profit university, or...)? Maybe there are already existing degree programs that would suffice, maybe not. Maybe it would be useful to think about what we might do if we could start from scratch.

[Paul Riismandel]

Steve, good to see you here. I'm at Northwestern now, working for the School of Communication.

I definitely think there needs to be some component of technological literacy as a complement to media literacy in a New Media program. Students going on to careers in New Media need to have a baseline understanding of how media technology works, from broadcast to internet. I don't think it needs to be highly technical, but rather more of a high-level overview.

Why do students need this? So they understand what the current practical realities are for the transmission and reception of new media are. So they know when something they're told is impossible is actually more possible. So they know the difference between marketing hype and reality.

An understanding of how the internet works, and how media like video and audio are broadcast on the internet, helps a student know why and how audiences sizes differ between internet and broadcast, and thus understand the different cost structures they may deal with as New Media professionals.

These concepts should be made practical with hands-on use of production and distribution tools.

These sorts of fundamentals are useful whether a student is going into management, PR, communications or production.

[stevejones]

Good to see you here too, Paul!

I agree with your comments. I would venture that there should be a component of tech literacy and media literacy in the general curriculum in our universities. I think it's disingenuous, to say the least, to write off the need for it because 'young people are so tech savvy' or some such. I've long thought, for instance, that the traditional 'writing across the curriculum' model should be updated to something like 'communicating across the curriculum,' and it should incorporate not only speaking and writing but presentation skills using technology and basic online communication skills (from basic HTML and web design to uses of blogs, social networks, etc.).

Now that you're at NU and 'local' we should meet up some time. If nothing else I'll look for you at the Summit.

[Kevin Burrell]

I for one am interested in seeing education that addresses all media perspectives. Media structure from policy, metrics, mediums, and economy should be take into consideration. One very important component in New Media studies should be dedicated to "reading" the media. Far to often people take the information given to them at face value or are so niche that they fail to broaden their interests. Students should not fail to take the media for granted or buy into its propaganda (Corporate, Academic,or governmental).

Time also needs to be invested in educating people about the value of old media. It is a must to understand that old media is not dying just adapting to the creative ways in which the world is embracing the internet. Explains and examples are key of course. Why are the old models of communication not working? In what new ways are people experimenting with TV, music and art (the list goes on) on the web?

I agree with it needing to be more technical. Hands on experience and hard skill sets should be emphasized. It also would not hurt to encourage them to create work of their own.

[stevejones]

Yes, the critical angle is...well, critical. Crucial, let's say.

I think what you're pointing out, Kevin, which is sorely lacking in most media studies and communication programs, is a comprehensiveness. Most are still rooted in print or oral models of a curriculum, and oriented around career tracks that may well be outdated (e.g., journalism, PR, advertising, or speech, for example). That's not to say that jobs in those areas don't exist or will go away soon (that's a whole 'nother topic of discussion) but rather to say that there are very few people who have a career that stays in any one of those tracks. And, many jobs overlap those areas on any given day.

That, however, has been how programs have legitimated themselves in the academy. They have by and large turned toward professionalizing rather than toward arguing for the importance and centrality of the field among the disciplines.

I agree, too, that media history should be a component of a new media curriculum. I think it's pretty clear that we can learn a lot about new media from old media.

Are there 'model curricula' we might point to? I'm not going to point to the undergraduate program I spearheaded at UIC as a model, not that I think it's bad but I think it would be unbecoming to do so (though it may be unbecoming to have just said that). At the doctoral level, however, I'm quite pleased with the bases our program at UIC covers. Graduate education is quite different than undergraduate education, though. At the undergraduate level what we have tried to do at UIC is to not lock students into any one particular career path, and we have tried to eschew teaching particular skills, since we are unlikely to be as responsive as the 'real world,' and instead worked to partner with the professional community, via internships, co-ops and other opportunities, to let students learn in and from the 'real world' what is best learned there, preserving classroom time for what best learned in the classroom. I think it is too early to tell whether this is a successful approach or not. I don't think it's a good metric to simply look at whether graduate get entry-level or first jobs, it's better to look at how quickly they can get out of those entry-level jobs and move up. And that takes time.

[Kevin Burrell]

"At the undergraduate level what we have tried to do at UIC is to not lock students into any one particular career path, and we have tried to eschew teaching particular skills, since we are unlikely to be as responsive as the 'real world,' and instead worked to partner with the professional community, via internships, co-ops and other opportunities, to let students learn in and from the 'real world' what is best learned there, preserving classroom time for what best learned in the classroom."

The advantages that smaller trade schools like Flash Point (here in Chicago) have is that they teach hard skills that translate into many different career paths. Broad career paths should "explored" and segmented according to student interests. This is the job of academic advisers and career advisers yet should be thrust upon teachers. We should be aware of what is going on outside accademia and offer practical solutions and insights.

The curriculum needs to endow useful knowledge about how to learn job skills outside of school as well.

[Heather Ronkoske]

WOW I am so glad this is stream of communication is open!! I fell into the arena of Feature Films 7 years ago but I actually have a degree in Finance. One thing I would like to see when it comes to a "New Media" degree is a mix of University back bone basics like business, and communication with a minor in film. New Media should be a communication degree on crack!! As someone whose education was a mix of business and politics I could read the trends in economy...so many times trends are mistaken for what is cool...its more like what is happening and how do we apply what we see coming in the future to what we are doing now. (like what should a new media degree be) People interested in New Media ideally would be culturally aware, be idea generators who can tell a story utilizing new technology. I think marketing, journalism, culture, film and technology based classes would be ideal....they should be able to take subject matter...come up with the angle...shoot said story,,,then deliver the content.

[stevejones]

Great post, Heather. I particularly like the notion that we should enable students to "be culturally aware, be idea generators who can tell a story utilizing new technology." The combination of classes you list, "marketing, journalism, culture, film and technology based classes," is an interesting one. One of the things that's difficult for a student is to work through the various prerequisites for courses in disparate areas, and universities could work a bit harder to ensure that it's possible for students to gain knowledge in an area without having to slog through nearly as many courses as if they were going to major in that area. We could also make it easier for students to understand how to put a degree program together that meshes with the notion of a liberal education but also addresses students' career interests. That brings us up against the problem of disciplinarity, that a particular major has requirements that often make it impossible for a student to get sufficient knowledge in a non-major area, or to combine offerings from several departments into a degree. I don't think there's an easy solution to that, but it's something universities are starting to see as important. I see the number of interdisciplinary degree programs increasing pretty steadily, and I think that growth will continue. It'll also require that alumni and professionals share their experience not only with students but also with faculty and administrators so that it's clear why such programs are valuable.

[Heather Ronkoske]

I saw a commercial last night for Harrington's School of Design degree in "Communication of Design" this may be something to look into as to what they require....it seemed like what could be a "New Media Degree" Also I have utilized Harrington students in the past due to the vast number of intern hours they need in order to graduate....an interior design major was great for a feature films art department etc.

[stevejones]

I think I agree with your post overall, but I wonder whether there is such a thing as "hard skills" in this day and age, or at least whether those are being misdefined. Too many programs think of them as learning particular software packages, for instance, rather than principles, e.g., learning Final Cut Pro instead of learning principles of visual communication, film and editing. And even the principles are subject to change. Will the usual principles apply in 3D production, in games, in virtual environments, etc.?

[Kevin Burrell]

That is the standard businesses are using. Problem solving skills are great to have, analytical skills even better but if you don't have a hard skill set to offer or "experience" then a higher education is providing no return on investment.

Disciplines do need to open a wider array of courses that cross over into other disciplines in detail. Departments need to interact with each other and not believe they are separate entities or celebrate themselves. Academia is a bureaucracy that only hurts the students.

The original intent of the University system was to help develop technology through the use of patents and generate critical thinkers. Neither of which can happen if educators don't open up to the students and allow them to explore their interests, learn from professionals in the fields (that includes professors) and overall what they can do (in a broad sense) with their degree early on and connect them to enablers that will foster their growth. Yeah I know run on sentence but that is what has to change.

[Kevin Burrell]

I want to dive into this a little more....

There needs to be education that teaches about the pros and cons of Tangible vs. Digital media. There also needs to be education about how to use and when to use these various types of media.

We need to teach students about how to cross reference information and not just willingly accept what is on TV or the internet.

Make the learning process inconvenient for students so they have to actually find and produce the answers to their own questions. Taking the time to force students to make mistakes and run into dead ends teaches students how to find their interests and hone their talents.

It is evident that today's media is subjective and wants to feed the public the answers and opinions of its benefactors. The business of media instantly adapts to the tastes of its consumers to meet demand. Granted the argument can be made that media consumers are told what to like instead of choosing what they like but the media watches us as consumers as much as we watch and consume it.

As Media scholars we need to reaffirm why the media (no matter what form) should be developed with respect.

[stevejones]

Interesting and well considered points, Kevin. These could form the basis of a syllabus, or even a mission statement for a curriculum.

I'm intrigued by the opposition of tangible and digital. I wonder if it would make sense to students? I might have to try that out on them when the semester starts in - yikes! - a week. :-)

It's always been interesting to me how many students want to be part of the media, want jobs in it, and how few (including both those who want media jobs and those who do not) want to think about it. I know it's hard to take seriously and critically something that you take pleasure from, but it's not impossible (if it were impossible nobody would be a critic of the Cubs or Bears, would they?).