In defence of media studies

The criticisms are automatic. Whenever a commentator begins the phrase "useless subjects like ...", I know it's going to end with the words "media studies." Fifty per cent of the time, the commentator will continue by making the observation that media studies graduates aren't guaranteed jobs in the media at the end of their studies, as though the only end of a degreee was a relevant job. Obviously I'm old fashioned. I still believe - against all the declarations of politicians - that study can be an end in itself and that sustained thought on a range of subjects enriches the thinker, society as a whole and the democratic process.

Thirty years ago the phrase "useless subjects like ..." would have ended with the word "sociology." People still think of it as a new discipline - in fact the first university sociology departments were established in the nineteenth century - but at last its debates about society, the family and ways of life are taken for granted.

Eighty years ago English was the typical "useless subject" - so controversial that some Oxford and Cambridge colleges still refused to appoint tutors in English. The subject, which included Anglo-Saxon, history of language, the plays of Shakespeare and the poetry of Milton, was seen as best fitted for women, working-class people and colonial subjects but not a matter of serious scholarship. The subject which needed no justification was Classics - the study of Greek and Latin.

Now it's media studies that's under attack. And I wonder why. Our daily lives are saturated by the media. For the last couple of years I've barely watched TV, although I've managed to see most episodes of Doctor Who. But when I wake up, I turn on the radio. I check the internet so that I can read the papers and my favourite blogs. I notice advertisements on my way to work. Sometimes I go to the cinema. Occasionally I try playing a computer game or hunt for podcasts and video clips. I'm more influenced by the media than the literature I read - and I think that's true of most people. Surely something that influences people so much is worthy of study.

Media studies covers a huge area. It usually begins with thinking about the ways in which various kinds of media are created: what is the structure of a newspaper report, a film, a TV show, an advertisement? It's important to understand that these things are made to set rules and that the way they are shaped may control what they say.

The film-maker Peter Watkins, who is also one of the most acute critics of the media today, writes about what he calls the "monoform" - rules of editing, sound, etc. which are so aggressive and dominant that they deny the viewer or listener space for reflection, criticism or resistance. I once heard Peter Watkins speak to Media Studies students - I slipped in to hear him although I wasn't on the course. He asked the students to time the length of visual clips used in news broadcasts. I think they were about 6 seconds long then. They are shorter now, allowing even less time to reflect and question. But since Peter Watkins' lecture, I've found myself asking key questions: Whose film are we seeing? (Sometimes the film is library stock and not recent footage of the events described.) Does it tell the same story as the sound track? What story is being told by the way the clips are edited together? What stories are not being told? (A story without a useful film-clip is unlikely to make it onto the TV news. And complex stories which take time to understand don't fit the rules of narrative that rule the newsrooms.) Peter Watkins argues that these questions aren't asked enough in departments of media studies. I expect he's right. But outside the world of the media and media studies, these questions aren't asked at all.

I can't outline the huge scope of media studies. There are areas and debates of which I'm barely aware - and probably some I couldn't begin to understand. The practical skills some media students acquire - from storyboarding to sound recording to website design - require a range of abilities. I'm most aware of the work of media studies in film and cinema history. At times - as in studies of the documentary movement - it overlaps with literary, music and art history. And then media students use debates about society - about the treatment of class, race, gender, etc. - and apply them to their analysis.

For instance, in the clip below from Mervyn LeRoy's film, Gold Diggers of 1933, the media studies student would be able to use a range of approaches. It would be possible, using Peter Watkins, to consider how the intensity of the film - its use of music, the Busby Berkeley choreography, and the potency of its visual images and editing - make it hard to disagree with what it says. The power of the song is particularly strange given its place in the film - it is presented as a song in a stage show but it becomes something more powerful and political. An approach looking at the treatment of race and gender might note that something complex is happening. The song is sung by two women - Joan Blondell and Etta Moten. Although Etta Moten has the better, more powerful voice, the central role is given to the white woman, Joan Blondell. Etta Moten's name doesn't even appear in the credits. And while the words of the song say that women are dependent on men, the men's individuality gradually blurs them from objects of admiration and pity into a pattern on a screen. Meanwhile the historical approach would tell how the film picks up a famous speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt and sets its key phrase to music. And the historian might also have something to say about the film's original audience: mostly poor, suffering from the effects of the Depression and entering the luxury of the cinema in search of escape, hope and happy endings.

Six hours in the Commune

We know the shape of a film or news broadcast - and we have a sense of how long each takes. Feature films are expected to fit a comforting story arc. Even if the events are distressing, the shape contains it neatly and, as they come towards their end, we have, at least, the reassurance of completeness and inevitability.

Every so often a story breaks that pattern and the effect can be shattering. I first noticed this in a play that began like a folk tale: Once upon a time there was a king who had three daughters. And he said to his daughters, "I want to know which of you loves me most." The story span on with cruelty, madness and violence but finally the wicked acknowledged their guilt and were punished. I could relax into the comfort as resolution. "The gods are just," one of the characters remarked, and later, "The wheel is come full circle." And then King Lear entered with the dead body of Cordelia in his arms. That was beyond the comfort of tragedy. "Is this the promised end?" "Or image of that horror?" It doesn't matter who is speaking - the voices pick up the horror of the audience, denied the expected reassurance. Very few dramatists take risks like this - and no other Shakespeare play does.

News stories have a pattern too. Some years ago, I heard a lecture by a speaker who pointed out that the news we watch on television has its own pattern. He told us that the pace and rhythm of news broadcast dictated what we were told. Stories that didn't fit the familiar pattern were discarded. And complete news broadcasts also had to fit a familiar shape so that the news, however disturbing, would also comfort and reassure. He pointed to the pattern that began with the "big story" and ended with an amusing item, followed by the weather. He looked at the structure of broadcasts, the summary at beginning and end, the use of single newscasters or newscasters working in pairs. He said that the news was so carefully shaped to the familiar structure that we couldn't detect the difference between truth and falsehood.

It seemed a pretty radical idea and I wasn't sure about it. However there were two factors which made me take him seriously. Firstly, he suggested we could carry out a small task to demonstrate the truth of his assertions. He talked about the speed of edits in the visuals from news stories. He said that no sequence lasted longer than six seconds without a cut - and suggested we go home and time them. He said that with such short sequences we couldn't easily ask important questions such as: Where is the camera? Who is filming this and why? Is this live film or stock footage? I timed sequences in the news that evening. He was right. Then I recorded a news broadcast. I watched and analysed it sequence by sequence. I started asking the questions the speaker had suggested. Since then, I've never felt the same confidence in TV news.

There was a second reason to take the speaker seriously. Many years before, I'd seen two films he had directed for the BBC. They were brilliant. The first was called Culloden and the second was The War Game. Peter Watkins talked a little about it. The film was made in black and white in 1965 with a mostly amateur cast but wasn't shown on BBC until 1985. Its subject - the possible effect of a nuclear attack on the town of Rochester in Kent - was judged too damaging to public confidence and, after consultations with the Home Office, the BBC announced that the film would not be shown. Eventually there was a screening at the National Film Theatre as well as a U.S. release. This meant that The War Game was eligible for the Academy Awards. It won the 1966 Oscar for best documentary feature. Peter Watkins said that, before representatives of the BBC could get up to collect the Oscar - which goes to the producer, not the director - he got up, made a speech and picked up the Oscar. I saw The War Game at a CND-sponsored screening ten years later. It still hadn't been on general release and there was a possibility that screenings were illegal. It was one of the most powerful and thought-provoking films I had ever seen. After he had made it, Peter Watkins never worked in England again.

Last weekend, I went to see Peter Watkins' most recent film, made in 1999 about the Paris Commune of 1871. I've wanted to see it ever since I first heard of it but this is the first screening I've ever seen advertised. I'd heard it was long but it was only when I bought my ticket that I discovered it lasted 5 hours 45 minutes. There would be an interval, I was told. I made a salad in a box and brought strawberries with me - perhaps not the most sustaining food.

La Commune is a huge film in every way. It has a cast of 220, mostly amateur actors. And it breaks many rules of film-making.

To begin with, the film declares itself a film. Two actors show the audience round the set, built in an empty warehouse. We're introduced to one of the central, fictional themes: in this recreation of 1871, television exists. The Versailles government influences the broadcast media so, in its early days, the Communards set up their own TV station. We watch the Versailles broadcasts as they misrepresent events. We watche people in the Commune watching TV - some prefer the broadcasts from Versaiiles. Then we see that the Commune broadcasters, without being asked, alter events to fit the usual rhythm of news broadcasts - they need to keep an audience. They wonder whether to ignore stories that make the commune look bad.

The events of the Commune aren't the backdrop to a love story or a small domestic drama as it would be in Hollywood. We follow a few individual stories in the 11th arrondissement but the focus is on complex political events and the effects they have on many different people - and, briefly, on society as a whole. Intertitles outline historical events and every so often a black screen gives the audience time to pause and reflect. The actors, who prepared for the film by researching the Commune and their roles, seem to improvise - or live - their roles.

I was tired before I reached the cinema and, towards the end of the first part, my concentration started to flag. But I returned (with peppermint tea) for part 2.

In the second half of the film, debates about the commune grew heated. The actors moved from conditions at the time to their relevance to 1999. There were discussions about women's rights, global economics, the need for action. I was riveted. Here were people considering their own time more clearly because they saw it through the lens of history - and, having researched what happened, they were impassioned about the events of history.

It's not an easy film or a tidy film. It offers more questions than answers. It's about the Commune and the media and the process of film-making. It's about history and what people think when they research the past and consider the present. It's history as hope and muddle and disastrous cruelty.

If you get a chance, see it. Go for the long version. You'll probably find it tiring. You may find it irritating. It's not a comforting film. It risks being condemned for its length, the facts it conveys, and its occasional repetitions. However, it looks marvellous - like early photographs come to life. The actors don't seem like amateurs; they inhabit their role. La Commune challenges the audience and cosy assumptions about what a film is. And there's no safe reassurance at the end.