Media Practice: Notes toward a Critical Production Studies

The priorities and missions that define undergraduate education are undergoing large-scale revisions. The definition of an acceptable college curriculum has become a crucial question within public and administrative debates about academia. What is largely at stake in these debates is the issue of educational outcome. Those who question the value of college teaching as it now stands seem to be asking, How do current university curricula prepare undergraduates for the pressures of a competitive job market and for what is often described (without irony) as "the real world"? This issue seems especially pressing for those of us who teach in film and media studies programs, where many industry-bound undergraduates find it hard to see how theory and criticism classes will help them get jobs in the industry. Given the larger climate of professionalization in the university, the potential for a "backlash" against critical studies in undergraduate media studies programs looms in the near future.