Abstract
This chapter explores how discourses of theory and practice operate within the context of screen production and media pedagogy in tertiary education and inform decisions about what is taught and how. The analysis makes use of speculative fiction (as a device to “re-enchant” understandings of the theory–practice relationship) as well as critical reflections on some of the author’s own academic and institutional biography. It also draws upon relevant theories of teaching and learning (such the notion of “signature pedagogies” for different professions) and grounds this broader discussion in the concrete experience of a recent major shift in the pedagogical approach in the Media degree programme at RMIT University, where the author works. That change, implemented from 2015, placed the notion of studio-based pedagogy firmly at the centre of a screen- and media-focused curriculum. This chapter argues that the adoption of a studio-based pedagogy has been a generative experiment in terms of finding new ways to integrate media production and media studies teaching. It has also been a valuable mechanism in terms of students and staff rethinking what they do as not being strictly theory or practice but rather a continuing exploratory journey through an unstable ontological territory.
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Notes
- 1.
See the “What is a Media Lab” project at http://whatisamedialab.com and Parikka (2017) on the “lab imaginary”, for a very different but likeminded approach to thinking about formations under which the research, teaching and doing of media take place.
- 2.
In 2016, for example, the University of Melbourne launched its “Collision” branding strategy (see https://research.unimelb.edu.au/stem), which emphasised the institution as a place where brilliant people and ideas come together. This was later transformed into the “Made Possible” campaign, which emphasised the practical over the conceptual by focusing on actual examples of research-driven projects.
- 3.
What constitutes “theory” (from the technical to the philosophical) can vary amongst studio leaders. One studio, for example, has engaged with media critic Bill Nichols (2001) on the principles of documentary to think about how aesthetics and politics combine, while another rethinks individual making practice via media materialism and Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology (2012). How that theory becomes part of studio activity also differs—often students are asked to make in response to relevant theoretical readings. The outcome of that encounter (the learning) is then typically articulated through a required explicit written reflection.
- 4.
Studio pitch booklets for each semester from 2015 to 2018 can be viewed at www.mediafactory.org.au/studios/studio-archive.
- 5.
I personally was not involved in that earlier process of renewal but I later taught and managed the degree programme that resulted from 2014 to 2016.
- 6.
Universities are now being pressured to ensure they and their degrees are relevant in terms of the skills taught to graduates. For instance, “employability” is currently a key term in RMIT’s strategic focus. This has arguably created anxiety about students’ future prospects, which may, for many, increase their antipathy towards “theory”. I am not convinced this is evidence of an anti-intellectual orientation (though there is a history of that in Australian culture and life generally), but it is perhaps an instance where the intensification of pressure encourages a rationality that sees theory as disposable in the short term in the interest of getting what are perceived as essential practical skills under one’s belt.
- 7.
See also Schrand and Eliason (2012) for a relevant discussion of Schulman seen from the perspective of a school which includes liberal arts and design disciplines.
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Morris, B. (2019). “Is this Degree Practical or Theoretical?” Screen and Media Education, Studio-Based Teaching and Signature Pedagogies. In: Batty, C., Berry, M., Dooley, K., Frankham, B., Kerrigan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21744-0_32
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