VIRTUAL: Applying Education

Abstract

As media technology has become increasingly ubiquitous, transforming and disrupting delineations of producer and audience, challenges have also emerged for practice-based media educators and the institutions that they operate in. This paper examines varying approaches to, and negotiations of, resourcing for media production teaching and considers the way technological requirements and/or expectations may function as a kind of “hidden curriculum” (Gannon, 2020). Presuming that they fall within budgetary restrictions and capital expenditure, technology, as a component of curricula, can be used to reinforce industry standards and norms and to prepare graduates for career success. Conversely, it is unclear the role such standards play when the media industries themselves are in a state of flux and industry practices, priorities and protections are varied between tensions such as “craft” and “spec” (Caldwell, 2016). Using semi-structured interview data and thematic analysis, research presented in this paper captures the perspectives of 24 educators, across 12 universities, in parts of Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe. Combined with the authors’ reflections of their own experiences in similar positions, we seek to problematize the decisions educators and educational institutions make about which “kit” to use when preparing teaching in a contemporary media environment. Decision-makers must navigate varying levels of agency, balancing budgetary constraints with the external expectations of both students and the industry networks they prepare them for. However, within these constraints, educators can articulate unique and varied philosophies that guide their responses to the problem of equipping students for an emerging media landscape.