When ‘new’ met ‘old’ media

My frustration with a strong isolationist attitude within the now fragmented field of media studies has met new heights. The division between film and television on the one hand and new media on the naturally evolved through media transitions. However, Frank Kessler rhetorically put forward during the round table at What’s Cooking:SE?! on April 11th, exposing changing tendencies, which of these two camps should be responsible for researching YouTube films?

And thus the partitioning of the two makes even less sense at this stage. I certainly do not blame it for offering students two media tracks (if we leave the research oriented MA’s aside): Film and Television as well as a New Media Studies. The department with its curriculum works as a rear-view mirror in that respect which is the least of our problems.

While to me there isn’t a shadow of a doubt that these two tracks will merge at some stage, I would like to “warn” everyone that this seemingly logical merger is going to be met with resistance. The heart of the matter is, rather than the delayed symptoms manifested in curricula, the contemporary academic mindset. I experience far too often that scholars and their students strictly define themselves by the media objects they study and in doing so create blind spots in their research, and more concerning they contribute to the (further) fragmentation of media studies. They inhibit what in my mind could be a highly stimulating platform of theoretical exchange amongst media scholars.

Luckily some scholars and students transcend the polarization. And to my great enthusiasm the MA NMDC offers an excellent interdisciplinary curriculum. However, I regret that it at times fails to acknowledge its own indebtness to the “older” media. And I equally regret that Film and Television demonstrates a cautionary attitude towards new media. While I recognize that studying specific media objects creates specific frames of media theory, I fail to understand why we, as researchers/students, reject the larger media theoretical (and historical) framework in which it is embedded.

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