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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Theo Hug
Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
Presentation at the conference on The Constitution of Media Education, organized by the division of Media Education of
the German Educational Research Association (GERA | DGfE ) and the division of Media Education of the Austrian Asso-
ciation of Research and Development in Education (AARDE | OEFEB) at the University of Vienna, September 29-30, 2016

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Overview
 Points of departure
 Freedoms and limitations of constitution in complex constellations
 Manifold modes of “disciplining” media education - examples
 Further perspectives
 e-ducational truth-telling in media cultures?
 action-oriented media education and media activism
 Conclusion
“Education towards truth is always education towards
the truth of the educator.” (Mitterer 1983, p. 273)

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Some points of departure
 Media education:
different fields of cultivation
 Plurality of terms, conceptualizations,
frameworks, methodologies
 Manifold modes of constitution
 Paradoxes and ambivalences
 Changing academic landscapes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ADiploma_
mill#/media/File:PatriotUniversity2.jpg
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/parent-concerns#
http://www.initiatived21.de/portfolio/bildungsmediale-2016
Cf. Zellweger Moser & Bachmann 2010, p. 1
http://www.zfhe.at/index.php/zfhe/article/view/9/252

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Freedoms and limitations of constitution in complex constellations
 disciplinary linkage and scopes of action
 status of intra-, inter-, cross-, multi- or trans-disciplinary orientations
 basic understandings of “media” and “education”, media cultural
dynamics, and relevant “educationalization formulas” (cf. Veith 2003,
pp. 183-201)
 Knowledge cultures and media infrastructures
https://www.gnu.org/education/education.en.html

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Modes of “disciplining” media education – examples
 Relevance of common modes of governance at the crossroads of
academic developments and science policies
 reallocation of funds, performance agreements and
resource management
 evaluation routines and quality assurance programs
 issues of western educational colonialism
 Dynamics and activities from within
 individual and collective decisions regarding
naming practices and policies of conceptions
 practices of following, labelling, branding,
modelling, mainstreaming, building alliances
 citation preferences, other practices of normalization
 Quest for critical perspectives?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308111050_Haus_der_digit
alen_Bildung_-_9_Facetten_digitaler_Medien_und_Technologien

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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e-ducational truth-telling in media cultures?
 questions concerning the educational meaning of research for the researcher aiming at
the “invention of new words and concepts, a new language of education that articulates
what is at stake in the care of oneself today” (cf. Masschelein & Simons 2007, p. 205f)
 educational research is “first of all e-ducational research for the researcher herself” —
and “this ethical-existential transformation is the condition to become – as a touchstone
– a teacher or truth–teller for others (students, people involved in education)”
(ibd., p. 205)
 In this perspective, ‘creative acts’ of “forming, inventing and fabricating new concepts
as well as to introduce new techniques and practices to govern oneself in the field of
education” can be connected to an ‘ethics of de-governementalization’ (ibd., p. 205)
 From a meta-critical perspective, this concept of de-governementalization offers itself
as concept of re-governementalization in other respects

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Action-oriented media education and media activism
 Distinct traditions and/or overlapping areas?
 media activism and action-oriented media pedagogy are largely disjunctive spheres
 the two spheres can be described as largely identical in terms of self-empowerment,
emancipatory transformations and pedagogical counter public (cf. Giroux 2001)
 partial overlaps of the spheres can be plausibly argued, too
 Perspectives for learning from media cultures of resistance?
 History of graffiti and graffiti (art) education
 Culture jamming (adbusters)
 Paradox interventions
in terms of (un-)disciplining
media education?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxXlDyTD7wo
http://gwei.org/
http://www.klv-sachsen-anhalt.de/images/
gesichtsfries_deutsches_fastnacht_museum_208.jpg

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Disciplining Media Education – Who cares?
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Action orientations revisited
between the conflicting priorities of
(cf. Hug 2012; 2015)
Destabilisierung / destabilization – Stabilisierung / stabilization
Diskontinuität / disconitinuity – Kontinuität / continuity
Revolution / revolution – Evolution (Reform) /evolution (reform)
Subversion / subversion – Transparenz / transparence
Ungehorsam / disobedience – Gehorsam / obedience
Eigensinn / self-will (obstinacy) – Solidarität / solidarity
Widerstand (Widerständigkeit) /
resistance
– Anpassung / adaption
Verweigerung / refusal – Partizipation / participation

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Conclusion
 Considering media activist interventions is no “no-brainer” in the context of
media education
 Then again, it can foster enhancements of media educational theories,
practices as well as (inter-)disciplinary understanding – moreover, it can
support (self-)reflective empowerment and developments beyond the
opposition between technophobic humanities and techno-euphoric natural
and engineering sciences
 However, this should not be mixed up with claims for openness towards
everything
“openness to possibilities is not the same as saying ‘anything goes’ because
possibilities are always limited and situated. Furthermore, openness is the opposite
of saying ‘nothing matters’ because possibilities are considered open only insofar
as they are found to be worth pursuing.” (Hoy 2004, p. 232)

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