The article we have been assigned to read for our Media Studies class is a plea from employers of the United Kingdom to ensure that more college students are taking media studies classes. I honestly had more issues reading the article than did in even going into detail on the subject. The article is very vague, and I believe that media studies is important in the goal of understanding psychoanalysis, but this article did not make that point.
The article repeatedly talked about "employers" and "businesses" would like to see more media studies classes being taught, but what employers are these? Are these employers of a business environment or jobs that require manual labor? Some jobs do not require their employers to analyze Freudian theories on a daily basis, so to learn which fields of work are looking for this would be interesting. The article also mentions a "customer" calling in and asking about a comparison between Ms. PacMan and feminist theory. What company has a hotline devoted to answering people's psychological questions? The article does a poor job of backing up the argument of the importance of media studies.
That being said, I do understand the importance of media studies, for it causes you to think outside of the box at different possibilities, and we are to use this way of thinking in our assignments to convince our readers to do the same. In our study of psychoanalytical theory, we are introduced to Freud and Lacan, with similar views on their subject matter. My small knowledge on psychoanalysis has led m to believe that the article itself could be improved with more concrete evidence about employers interested in media studies classes. With actual employers in mind, I would be able to more accurately see myself in a position of working for this company knowing that I have been educated in the subject. Another way the article could be improved would be a mentioning of specific skills learned in media studies classes that these employers look for. Whether it just be psychoanalytic knowledge, or the ability to know how to blog effectively, it would be a nice addition to the article to reach out to more college students (which I assume is the "real reader" of this article).
For an article discussing the importance of media studies, it is ironically vague. With simple additions like examples of employers that are looking for these skills, and the skills themselves, this could be a great article that could effectively help both college students and professors alike to find and fix problem areas in this magnificent field of study.
