20 Important Ways to View Studying the Media

By Chris Worsnop

Unsure where to fit media education into your subject area? Looking at the media in relation to other topics may help.

Like history, the media interpret the past to show us what has gone into making us the way we are.
Like geography, the media define our place in the world for us.
Like civics, the media help us to understand the workings of our world and our individual places in it.
Like literature, the media are our major sources of stories and entertainment.
Like literature, the media require us to learn and use critical thinking skills.
Like business, the media are major industries that are inextricably involved in commerce.
Like language, the media help to define how we communicate with each other.
Like science and technology, the media always adopt the leading edge of modern technological innovation.
Like family studies, the media determine much of the cultural fabric of our lives.
Like environmental studies, the media are as large a part of our everyday environment as are trees, mountains, rivers, cities and oceans.
Like philosophy, the media interpret our world, and its values and ideas to us.
Like psychology, the media help us to understand (or misunderstand) ourselves and others.
Like science, the media explain to us how things work.
Like industrial arts, the media are carefully planned, designed and constructed products.
Like the arts, the media allow us to experience all the arts as no other age has ever been able to.
Like politics, the media continually bring us political and ideological messages.
Like rhetoric, the media use special codes, conventions and languages that we need to understand.
Like drama, the media present life as larger-than-life -- and compel us to think of ourselves as an audience.
Like Everest, the media are just there.
And finally, just as we watch the media, the media go to great lengths to study us!