Media Education is About a Curriculum Driven by the Emergence of Digital

Education in media has a new and multidisciplinary meaning today. There is a shifting dynamic in the way the media is functioning with the rise of new mediums of mass communication. This has created the need for a new way of learning for those who want to pick a career in media and communication.

Media in itself has completely transformed over the last five to ten years. We have moved from magazines and newspapers to blogs and influencers and a whole breadth of mediums that together comprise the digital landscape. This has created a need to change the way we treat education in media. One of the keys to deliver good media education today is to design a curriculum that is driven by the emergence of digital media. There is a lot we can learn from the way social media platforms function today and the increasing power of digital marketing. That is because social media has become a key medium of communication.

In fact, the entire millennial generation has moved away from traditional mediums that we were used to. There are now new spaces of learning and interaction that they are used to. They are communicating via games, on Telegram, and other such channels. These are all new and engaging ways of communicating. This has changed the way we learn and use mass communication. Additionally, the new generation has become more private in their conversation. They have become more exploratory in their choices. The complete ethics and dynamics of how this generation thinks, learns, and executes has created a chasm for us to create new education in media.

With changing social dynamics, it is more pertinent to know that learning is not only coming from the teacher but also from the social environment around them. Learning has moved from being classroom driven to being shaped by experiences and the availability of resources. Technology is playing a tremendous role in the way the world provides and consumes information. There is no clear divide now or rulebook that can be used to design formal education in media.

Here, the trainer plays a key role in defining the experience of the learner. What is the technology, the mode of learning (with the onset of online education), the medium of instruction? All this plays a huge role in the way the learner understands and consumes mass media today. It also becomes key to define what research the students will conduct and how they will integrate assignments that not only use new mediums of communication but also encourage students to explore them. For my generation – those who grew up in the 80s and 90s, it was all about scouring for information, breaking the norms, and going beyond our comfort zone. However, for a generation that has grown up with the internet, the key to education has become deriving the right learnings from the avalanche of information available to them.

At the end of the day, education in general today is about how we implement new examples as we evolve into a digital economy; and in fact, post-pandemic, how do we include the ethics of technology while ensuring that it is only an enabler and not a distraction to learning.