Media Studies, Academia & Society

Can academia make a difference? A real difference to people’s lives? I’m starting to ponder this more and more and to think about how what I might research and work on could potentially have an impact upon ‘real life’. I’m not sure why; partly because my friend has started a job which is going to make a genuine difference to people and maybe partly because my own new job seems to have brought me into contact with people who want to use their academic position to give people a voice and to try to give them opportunities they wouldn’t normally get.

There is a sense that research heavy academia involves sitting in the so-called ‘ivory tower’, writing papers and books that might be theoretically innovative or ground-breaking within the circle of one’s own discipline but which will never truly resonate within wider society, and which can never truly affect any change. We research, we write, we publish and each new appearance in a journal or at a conference enhances our own profiles, adding new lines and achievements to the CV. It adds more currency which we can cash in and exchange for better jobs, better salaries and greater recognition. It never really occurred to me that researching could do all this but might also affect some change in the world beyond the corridors and halls of the academy. True, some research can affect policy and decision-makers but I always imagined that to the province of those engaged in media work on politics and representations, ideology and power. Those whose work on terrorism might impact upon how it is represented, for example, or my own involvement in looking at how news broadcasters report devolved political news and which led to recommendations which were followed up by the institutions involved. Yet I could never see how my own research might follow in this vein. How my work on identity and media, on fandom or cultural position might allow those who don’t often have a voice to be heard. How this act of speaking, of being listened to, of someone actually soliciting a response might, in itself, have a positive effect on those who take part.

I suppose the key is moving from viewing those who we research as ‘subjects’ to seeing them as being actively involved in our research process. Having thought a lot about ethics and methods this week I’m starting to see that genuine feedback and dialogue, how reciprocal conversation and research might improve the quality of what we produce, how this might be a way to move away from the ivory tower stereotype towards a sense of how and why academic work might matter. I had a conversation with a colleague about a potential project to set up a media centre in one of the most deprived places in the country, a place which would allow people to begin to trace their own family trees and get involved in genealogy. To be able to engage with and negotiate their own sense of heritage, rather than it being imposed upon them by organisations like the National Trust and museums and galleries who position them and their homes within a discourse of ‘Welsh past and history’ which has little resonance with their own experiences and feelings.

Maybe this isn’t as grand influencing how governments or media corporations do business but, if this sense of ownership over one’s identity can have even the slightest impact upon how these people feel about themselves and how they are represented, then this is surely a successful endeavour and one which may begin to show the way forward for how media research and universities in general might begin to engage with the communities which co-exist beside them. If all you ever hear about where you live is that it is poor, that you have no chance or opportunity, that you will never amount to much because your background dictates that this is so, then the chance to speak out, to express how you really feel could be a truly beneficial experience.

Not to say that the poor disadvantaged public require the charity and wisdom of the academic researcher to improve their lives – that is not what I mean to convey. But that a dialogue, a relationship, a chance for feedback and conversation, might truly impact upon both academic research and upon the lives of those outside of it.